


Pavlov's dog

by Polkadot_Paragua



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Child Abuse, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 02:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2905865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polkadot_Paragua/pseuds/Polkadot_Paragua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pavlov discovered the possibility to link two completely unrelated conditions with each other in a nearly unbreakable way. He has thereby invented a mighty method to condition someone: to make someone feel or do any desired thing by triggering any desired condition.<br/>This comes in very handy when training your dog. Or son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Strange timing

Luckily, the schoolyard was nearly empty at the eighth class, close to three in the evening, when Kaiba had him fuming again on the way to the gym.  
He couldn't even fully understand how it had happened, but he knew it had, again, and it hadn't cost Kaiba more than one of his arrogant gazes and about half a dozen words, and lucky him Tristan didn't hesitate to stab him in the back while passing by, throwing one cool "Easy there Joey, don't get all biting, it's not Kaiba's fault you didn't have your daily walkies yet."  
"Tristan you little fucking -", Joey only managed to shout after him, before Kaiba's voice cut him off, advising: "Yeah, Wheeler, listen to your friend, now be a good dog and make 'Down' like you were tought, and if you're a good boy you might even earn yourself some nice dog bisquits."  
"Kaiba, I sweat to god, I'm gonna", he cried, but then only uttered one long frustrated, whole-hearted scream when Kaiba didn't even have the decency to look at him anymore but rather just walked on calmly in the direction of the gym.  
"Stop the barking and come to heel, mutt", Kaiba said with a bored, casual voice without even looking.  
He ran after him, unaware of thereby doing exactly as he had been told, but not stopping, instead jogging backwards a couple of feet diagonally in front of him, staring him down.  
"Will you please goddammit stop the dog jokes because they really fuck me up you know? I don't get all your Sit and Down and Heel! You get a boner from imagining me kneeling before you or is it just that the great Seto Kaiba gets a boner from every single fucking human being on earth looking up to him from the ground?"  
"Don't be ridiculous", Kaiba snarled, giving him a strangely sharp look out of the corner of his eye, never stopping his pace nor moving his face held straight forward, chin slightly up arrogantly like a Barbie doll.  
"No, really! What is it with this 'Down' thing? You got some kind of kink or what?", he insisted, making Kaiba speed up his pace, which was probably more than he had achieved on several other occasions, so speeding up his light backwards jogg, too.  
"If you don't stop barking I'll get you a muzzle!", Kaiba returned, but his chin wasn't as high up anymore and his face had actually something like a sour trait about it by now.  
"Shut it yourself! You know what?", Joey exclaimed, jogging a bit closer, as close that this time Kaiba actually had to turn his head to keep an eye on him, there was a wrinkle between his eyebrows now and his lips were pursed in a somewhat challenging way, but he didn't have time to answer, as Joey grabbed his sleeve in a tight fist and now literally barked: "I fucking saved your ass just about two weeks ago, so you should be the one fucking kneeling before me!"  
Then something rather strange happened. Kaiba's face changed from stubborn via mildly surprised to utter astonished disbelief, which it could only keep for the split of a second before turning to something like shock as he finally paid for his not minding his way by stumling, the fabric of his sleeve slipping through Joey's hand, and falling forwards. He managed to get the suitcase more or less save to the ground before his hands hit the ground hart, drawing a soft cry from him.  
Joey had stopped instantly, now stared as taken aback as Kaiba, as his long fingers clenched and unclenched on the ground for a second, a sound like a choking moan came from his throat.  
"Oh come on, don't be a sissy, get up", Joey plagued him, sneering a very satisfied little lopsided grin. Kaiba didn't look at him when he got up to his feet with all the grace only he could muster after having done 'Down' for his own dog.  
"I see you are very well tought, too, Kaiba. We should practise a bit, maybe you get your manners back!" He was absolutely sure this moment was never, never going to vanish from his visual memory. He even closed his eyes to cherish it for a second, letting the pleased look of bliss wash over his face shamelessly. When he opened them again, Kaiba picked up his suitcase neverminding the scratched hand. He had his mouth open for another snarky remark, knowing exactly how Kaiba would not ever hesitate to use a misery mercilessly against him, but when he saw Kaiba's face, he closed his mouth again. It was not annoyed or angry, it was confused, unfocused even, and for an extremely brief moment when their eyes met, he saw something utterly strange in them. It was as if Kaiba had been absolutely sure he was not capable of stumbling and was tought otherwise now, which caused him to rethink his whole self-perception.  
Joey looked after him, wary, and only after some seconds followed him slowly without closing up.  
He would cherish the image some more later. For now, well, he had had his fun, he could as well drop it.

To his sorrow, instead of being thankful for cutting him some slack after the incident, Kaiba seemed to be twice as venomous after that. While he usually wasn't too fond of Joey, there had been something between them, at least. Yes, they had been insulting each other. But most of the time Kaiba had given him the impression that he didn't actually mind his precence as long as he could pick on him enough. He would have taken every chance to play the master and his dog game, and usually it even had a somewhat funny, even tender undertone, in a twisted way that only a Kaiba could pull of without being callled an utter pervert.  
Now, whenever his eyes found Joey, he made sure to show him how much he didn't wish him in his near surrounding. He gave him icy death glares and instead of 'Come come! Heel, Wheeler, let's go walkie or you won't be able to sit still after the break', he would just give him a 'Move!' or 'Shut it already you unbearable insufferable imbecile, other people have to work over here!'  
There was nothing playful or tender about him. If he didn't know better, he would say, Kaiba made him pay for witnessing his little fauxpas by full grown hate.  
He didn't understand why. He wasn't like this with the others at all, although his mood might have dropped another couple of degrees as of late, but none of the others was treated like this. Kaiba shoved him out of the way nearly brutally whenever he got the chance, and whenever he found an opportunity to compromise him in class, he'd jump at it right away, enjoying deeply how much he looked like a fool when being cought with his head on the desk, reading the wrong side of the textbook or having forgotten his homework.  
It was torture, really. He had been itching for Kaiba's throat once in a while before, but it was nothing in comparison to now. Most of the time he literally wished for a knife to fucking slit Kaiba's throat. At least once a day Tristan needed to keep him back bodily from punching Kaiba's annoying face. More even, his insults had reached a completely new level.  
Sure, Kaiba had been quite an asshole before with only unnotible improval after some of the adventures they had been up to together, but now, this was not about simply being annoyed by someone. One year ago he had personally put the key ino the water for Joey to rescue himself from drowning by Marik's hand, shortly after he had given him quite a satisfied smirk over the fact that Joey had thought he'd blown himself up with that stupid island of his, he had been pretty sure there was some sort of, well, hostile sympathy between them. Now, on the other hand, Kaiba officially hated his guts. He didn't say 'sit' and 'heel' anymore. He didn't tell him to stop barking anymore. He told him to shut the fuck up or he would personally make sure that filth like him would be removed from the school ground. There wasn't the slightest smirk on his lips anymore. The slightest sparkle from under his too long bangs. The slightest amusement in this tone. He made very sure Joey and every bystander wouldn't have the least doubt that he meant what he said word by word.  
It had gotten so bad that Joey had problems with every single teacher by now, he had earned himself detention three times in the last week for trying to give Kaiba a nice clean sucker punch and for insulting him back so badly the teacher had turned dark red, and he had actual sleeping problems, lying in bed in the evenings thinking about how he'd earned himself this and if he deserved it and how he could get rid of it, and even worse, if all the mean things Kaiba said might actually hold some truth.  
There had to be an end to this. Soon. Or he was going to get crazy.  
So he made a plan.

Next day was PE day again. Same time, same place, Joey had thought, and there he was, waiting for Kaiba and his suitcase to make their appearance on the way from the school building over to the gym. He had all but sneeked away from Yugi and Tristan and luckily Kaiba was as usual one of the last to arrive, so he wouldn't have to deal with the worst bunch of yelling puberty in the locker rooms. Joey rolled his eyes looking at his watch. He felt a sudden reminder of old times, when he would hide in the shadows of an alley to rid one or another poor being of their poor belongings or terrorize some children for fun with his overcool little streetgang. Well, he still had it if he needed it. It would have made him grin if he hadn't been so tensed. If he fucked it up, Kaiba could get him in earnest trouble and he didn't really want to experience what happened when he got even nastier than now.  
But it wouldn't get that far. His heart nearly jumped when he heard it. The footfall. It was different from all the other steps of all the other boys. A very distinctive sound. Wooden soles on the concrete, not like the sneakers of most, but too steady and too bassy to be a girls heels, longs strides and nearly no shuffling of clothes, though he wore the same school uniform as everyone else.  
He held his breath and counted the steps to prepare himself, then, just when Kaiba arrived round the corner, he jumped at him, grabbed his arm, teared him forward and smashed him back first into the wall. Kaiba was so surprised he let his suitcase fall and didn't even prevent the back of his head from colliding with the wall. Joey was about to press his hand over his mouth to keep him from shouting, but Kaiva only raised his hand to his head and groaned, looking down at Joey disorientedly while his eyes seemed to need some time to refocus.  
"We need to talk", he exclaimed brusquely, and then he could see, as in slow motion, how realisation dawned in Kaiba, his face going from reserved to deathly in the blink of an eye.  
"Get off me right now or I'll forget myself, Wheeler", Kaiba said. It was a real threat. It was 'let go or I will find a way to let you disappear'. He might even achieve that.  
"No", Joey hissed, cold rage in his voice while he had Kaiba pinned to the wall by his underarm across his breast, though he didn't let himself be fooled into thinking Kaiba wouldn't get rid of him easily. It was more his fast punch that would make him keep the upper hand in this if neccesary – at least he hoped so.  
"I want answers, now! I want the fuck to know what's going on in that psycho head of your's! What's been going on the last two weeks, huh? Have you completely lost your mind?!"  
Kaiba stared down at him in visibly bad concealed rage, then grabbed his wrist and pulled his arm away close to brutally, but refrained from more violence when Joey made one step back going to defence position.  
"You are just one annoying little shit, Wheeler, as always. And as you can't keep your filthy mouth shut, I seem to be the only one to make you." His voice was deadly calm, even his expression had somewhat settled bad to the disdaneful, cold glare.  
"You fucking know I know that's not true! It's because of that thing the other day! I just don't get it! It was nothing, why do you freak out like that about it?!" He wasn't letting the defensive arms down and he wasn't going to let Kaiba pass him by one fucking inch, but he was honestly rather relieved there seemed to be a ways of talking to Kaiba after all.  
"I am not freaking out, you illiterate mongrel", Kaiba sneared, and Joey finally released some of the tension of his defensive position.  
"You are! You have completely snapped man, you went fucking bonkers!", Joey insisted, now openly gesturing with his arms.  
"You're imagining. This conversation is over", Kaiba spat, and then, turning to the side, he wanted to stride by, but Joey shot forward and grabbed him by his arm again, yanking him back, though this time refraining from smashing him into the wall.  
"You stay until I got my answer", Joey snarled.  
"There is no answer!", Kaiba said, annoyed now.  
"There fucking is!"  
Finally, Kaiba gave him a long look, keeping silent for the duration of one deep breath, then said: "If you really need to know: I am just absolutely fed up with your utter, annoying stupidity. I can't see your face anymore, I can't hear your voice anymore, you're making me sick! Someone just needs to show you where your place is, and that is exactly to my -"  
Two sounds simultaniously hindered Kaiba from elaborating further: The fist colliding with his jaw bone, and the fuming shriek of Joey's voice: "Fuck you - To MY feet, Kaiba!"  
The impact sent Kaiba backwards into the wall, he hit his head again, his hands gripping down onto the rough plaster of the wall, scratching up again, then sliding down, but then, when he was nearly on the ground, something strange happened. He came down until sitting, his legs tangled under him, then fell forward with a tortured little sound that could have been a "No!", as if some unvisible power was forcing his whole torso to the ground, face down, while his hands gripped down hard into the grass, tried to stem himself back up.  
"What -", Joey cried out, somewhat shocked but mostly confused, he had taken one fast jump backwards to get out of the way, but still Kaiba's hands were only one handlengh away from his shoetips now.  
"What the fuck?", he inquired, after Kaiba didn't do anything but struggling in front of him. Had he punched him that bad? Had he broken his jaw and the pain was so unbearable? He couldn't imagine.  
Finally, Kaiba raised his face, he had to tilt his head extremely wide back so he could look him in the eyes. It looked just obscene. And his face. It was pure and utter terror.  
"Let me up!", he demanded, lowly, strained and choked somehow.  
"What?", Joey asked, now completely at a loss, as he stood there looking down, feeling something like... Like frighten in his throat. Was Kaiba possessed? Had he gotten a seizure? That must be it! He had suffered some kind of fit from the adrenaline and the shock of the punch!  
Slowly, carefully, with a mixture of anxiety ans reluctance, he let himself down on his knees, but kept his eyes glued to Kaiba's worrisome face and posture, trembling, nearly squirming.  
"Let – Me up!", Kaiba ordered again, his voice had more force this time, a mixture of rage and a commanding tone.  
"I'm not doing anything, I swear!", Joey spit back, now this was seriously sick. One look into Kaiba's face made him honestly wish he would be doing anything, because then he could stop doing it now, but like this, he was as helpless as Kaiba was, and by now he didn't find it funny or satisfying anymore at all, it was just scary and disturbing. In Kaiba's face was pain, but mostly fear, and Joey knew it was not because of the punch.  
"Please!", Kaiba finally brought out, and his face did plead in a way, then his hands slid forward, bending him even further down, until they grabbed Joey's hand that hand been supporting him in the grass. Joey instinctively wanted to pull it out of his reach, but the grip was vice-like. Kaiba spoke again, this time more like a husky whisper, drawing his attention back to his face: "Release me!"  
"I'm sorry", Joey stumbled, then leaned forward, getting a hold of Kaiba's jacket front with his free hand, and pulled upwards: "Come on, get up, s'okey!", he encouraged him, and then, suddenly, the second the words had left his mouth, there was a jerk through Kaiba's body and he shot up, stumbled backwards into the wall, he stood there for a couple of hasty breaths, then he slid down the wall in the exact same way as before, but this time only slightly slumping forwards onto his hands. There he stayed. Crouching, breathing, facing the grass. His bangs completely hid his face.  
Joey was still kneeling on the ground, but there was enough space between them now that he couldn't touch him anymore by simply reaching out.  
He waited quite some time, but then couldn't bear the uncomfortableness anymore and cleared his throat."  
"Uhm, Kaiba...?", he asked, hesitantly.  
Kaiba didn't acklowledge him.  
"Kaiba, hey... Are you... Are you better?", he tried again. He crawled forward a bit and reluctantly reached out a hand to Kaiba's shoulder, but in this moment, Kaiba's head shot up.  
"Don't touch me!", he ordered, his eyes wild and also exhausted, but not confused anymore at all.  
"What the fuck was that?", Joey insisted, though let his arm fall back down.  
Kaiba looked like he wanted to snap at him for a second, but then his lips remained stubbornly sealed.  
"Is this why you've been such an asshole lately?", he offered a trade-off half answer, gulping a bit at Kaiba's appearance, dissheveled, red burning cheeks, maybe even a bit sweaty, gleaming eyes, dirt on his hands and legs, his lip was bleeding where he had gotten punched.  
But he still didn't answer.  
"Are you ill?", Joey offered further.  
No answer.  
"Kaiba, you hear me? This looked really dangerous. You should see a doctor, man!"  
Finally, Kaiba snorted.  
"This is no seizure, you insufferable idiot", he hissed, slowly leaning back against the wall and examining first his dirty and scratched hands, then, after brushing the dirt off, feeling his lip.  
"But -"  
"It's a conditioning!"  
"A – what?"  
"Are you really that intellectually challenged?", Kaiba snarled harshly: "A conditioning! It's no phisical condition. It's psychological."  
"I know what a conditioning is! Asshole! Pavlov's dog and shit! What does that have to do with this?!"  
Kaiba rolled his eyes, let out a heavy breath and got to his legs, still a bit shaky, but got steadier rather quickly, bent down to brush the dirt off his shins and combed through his hair with his fingers, then looked down on himself. He groaned when he saw the fabric on the back of his sleeves was scratched, nearly torn from the rough rendering of the building. Now nearly completely back to his usual composure, he shrugged off his jacket elegantly, then gave it a look. The back was scratched, too. He rolled his eyes.  
Rubbing his jaw carefully, he looked down at Joey, then stayed unmoving for a seconds, as if unsure of what to do weighting the possibilities.  
Joey wanted to push some more about this conditioning thing, but in that moment, Kaiba simply said: "Now, what. You're coming or not? We are expected on the field in five minutes."  
And with that, he turned.  
Joey needed another five seconds, looking after him frowning, then got up quickly and jogged to catch up with him.


	2. Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always I want to let you now I'm sorry for sense no make English :D  
> I'm not a mothertongue and I am also too lazy to read everything ten times. If you want to be my beta - tell me! :)

"So, how -", Joey started very carefully, his voice soft, but Kaiba cut him off right away.  
"No."  
"What?", Joey asked, confused.  
"I said, no", Kaiba repeated calmly.  
They were sitting in the classroom and as destiny had wanted it, they were the only two ones having stayed behind in the break and there was only one empty desk seperating them. Well, destiny maybe hadn't had as much to do with it, as Joey had sat at this place very intentionally this morning and had also very intentionally refrained from going down for the break with everyone else because he had been well aware that Kaiba would stay up here opening his laptop and doing whatever kinds of important stuff or play freecell, who really knew.  
"You don't even know what I wanted to ask!", he stated indignantly.  
"Yes I do", Kaiba answered without even looking up from his screen. "And before you go on bugging me further: I have known already when you haven't gone out with your kindergarden. I have probably even when you have chosen this desk in the morning."  
This sort of stole Joey's thunder, so he sat there for a moment feeling buffled, but finally inquired: "So? What is it then I wanted to ask?"  
Kaiba rolled his eyes the way he always did, but still didn't look up. "Don't be even more childish than usual. Oh, whom am I fooling, just try not to be childish just for once." Joey gave an accusatory snort, but pressed his lips together, hoping of a better chance of success by pressing on in silence. Surprisingly, it worked: "It's about the Pavlov story", Kaiba stated.  
"Yeah, it totally is", Joey confirmed, nodding a bit as if to confirm himself, too.  
"Then the answer is no."  
"Yes, you said that before. But the answer to a how question cannot be no."  
This time, Kaiba looked up. Joey smirked. And Kaiba looked at him, eyebrowes raised, for a moment, blinking slowly.  
"Chapeau. You have just earned yourself a nice big dog bisquit", he announced.  
"Asshole", Joey hissed. "I earned myself an answer, that's what I earned!"  
Kaiba let one eyebrow fall down and tilted his head slightly, obviously weighting if it was a good idea to allow Joey this privilegue. He was a man of his word, so if he let Joey pronounce his question, he would have to answer, if he didn't want to look like a coward.  
"Fine", he said after a moment. "Ask your question. One question."  
Joey's face lit up. Easier than he'd expected.  
"How have you gotten yourself this... conditioning?", he asked, careful not to say something that might upset Kaiba.  
But even as vague as he had done it, this seemed to cause Kaiba some mild bad mood. He let his gaze wander off, first to the window, then to his screen, as if the answer was there, or maybe the answer to the question of if he was supposed to answer at all. Because it didn't seem so for quite a while.  
"It has been implemented on me when I was a child."  
"A child?", Joey asked, frowning, leaning forward on his ellbows.  
"Yes."  
"By whom?"  
"My stepfather."  
"What for?"  
"I see, the task of counting to one is already over your head", Kaiba said coldly, but surprisingly without real hostility in his voice.  
"Come on, this is good for you!"  
Kaiba snorted out some air through his nose. "And how that exactly?", he inquiered, to Joey's surprise he finally turned his whole body in his direction now, crossing his legs slowly and elegantly, then his arms, then he leant back in his chair and gave him the 'I'd like to see how that's supposed to work' look.  
"Well, you don't seem to have talked about this to anyone and uhm... Dunno, that makes it sort of a dark secret, right, and secrets are slowly eating you up from the inside!"  
Kaiba snorted again.  
"Trust me on this one, this is by far not my only secret nor is it my darkest, and no single one of them has eaten me up until now."  
"Ha! There's gonna be a first time for everything!", Joey burst out triumphantly, then, letting his arm sink, slowly corrected himself: "I mean, that doesn't mean... Of course I don't wish..."  
"Yes. Don't overexert yourself", Kaiba said, rolling his eyes again.  
Joey shot him a pouty look, but then fell silent for a moment, before starting again, this time weighting his words carefully.  
"Listen. Have you stopped uhm... terrorizing me...", Kaiba gave him a very sharp glance for that", because you trust me or because you mistrust me?"  
There was the face again. The 'good boy, you get a dog buisquit' face.  
"To be honest I am not sure", Kaiba answered after a little pause. "Maybe both."  
Joey felt something close to anger for a moment, but then thought better of it. Kaiba and he had never been best friends. But the last two weeks had been a cruel test to his nerves. If he had found out in another way, if things had been slightly different, who knew, he might have even used it against him. Also, he knew what it meant for Kaiba if he let this knowledge slip. To certain people, to the press, or just to some schoolmate, causing the whole school to know by next week. It would be a desaster. No. It would be a torture.  
So Kaiba was being marginally nice to him now because he was afraid? On the other hand – If he had been really afraid, he could have done something. Send someone to intimidate him. Or offer him money to make him shut up. Goddammit, he thought, he could totally blackmail Kaiba! Wasn't he afraid? Was he expecting it? Joey frowned again while watching Kaiba, who looked back at him calmly, patiently, nearly as if bored. Joey couldn't stop asking himself if Kaiba knew what he was thinking right now. If he could see the possibilities rushing through his head. Did he have his checkbook ready? Was he innerly preparing for defending himself against another attack?  
"Doesn't this go away or why d'ya still havvit?", he asked right away after a moment.  
Something changed in Kaiba's face. It was very subtle, but Joey had become rather good at finding differences in Kaiba's face, as they were nearly always subtle.  
"It's enough. You have been permitted way to many questions by now", he said, and his tone made absolutely clear there was no discussing the matter anymore.  
So Joey fell silent, while Kaiba turned back to his screen, fingers softly but quickly typing on the keyboard, filling the room with the busy little clicking noises.  
They didn't talk anymore until the bell brought the other pupils back up into the classroom like a swarm of frantic little fish flooding into an ocean cave.

Three month passed like nothing had happened. Though it was obvious that Kaiba used "Heel" a lot more, while "Down" a lot less on Joey these days. Strangely, Joey didn't get too annoyed by it anymore. In the contrary, it even sort of amused him once in a while.  
While Kaiba had been reluctant in the beginning, he had come back to old habits as soon as he had found he could trust Joey not to going to humiliate him in public, nor abuse any opportunity when he caught him alone anywhere.  
Honestly, knowing that Kaiba would do the 'Down' for him anytime if it just suited him made it extraordinarily much easier for Joey to deal with Kaiba. He was less insulting, he was less provoking, and even if he was, Joey didn't get fuming anymore but rather just returned the favor by insulting him back, then flashing him a toothy grin.  
It was in PE, figures, when it happened again.  
They was playing indoor soccer in the gym, because it had been snowing rather heavily the last days, Joey was appointed as keeper, Kaiba left defender, when the striker of the other equipe got a long pass and sped through all the middlefielt, tunneled Bakura, and focussed the goal.  
"Someone stop him you lame asses!", Joey shouted, tensing all his muscles for the jump when neccesary, but he wouldn't even have had to say something, Kaiba was already cutting his way, blocking the line to the goal. When the striker made a quick swerve to the side, Kaiba dived him, and the other fell, Kaiba got the leather, flashed Joey a quick look to see if he was free to pass forward, but then seemingly decided to pass it himself, dribbled it away smoothly while the other boy got back to his feet.  
The second Kaiba kicked the long pass, Joey heard: "Watch out, or I'm gonna have you on your knees next time, Kaiba!", and then a gasp, and Joey saw him falling forward as if stumbling, absorbing the impact with his outstretched arm, but he could easily see it wouldn't serve for more than two seconds.  
He reacted completely unintentional, reflexively even, when he shouted. "Get up Kaiba, no time to take a nap!"  
Kaiba shot up this very instance, spinning around and looking at him, mouth open, the astonishment from the fall still in his face, but it was something else, too. Even after he had straightened his body, he stood still, looking back at his keeper, lips slightly ajar, and seemed to search for an explaination in Joey's face. He gave him a cheeky little half smile that turned into a broad grin when Kaiba half frowned.  
The moment was broken when someone shouted Kaiba's name and he turned around to find another second and the pass would have hit hit head.

As PE had been the last class, it was rather easy to head Kaiba off. Joey was leaning back against Kaiba's car on the parking lot (a tacky though elegant BMW in, of course, midnight blue), when Kaiba arrived. He raised his eyebrowes but didn't show any other reaction, just calmly walked on over with his suitcase, got the car keys out of the inner pocket of his uniform jacket and unlocked the car with the tipical electric response noise.  
"Your hair is wet", he said, when he opened the driver's door, ignoring Joey leaning next to it. Joey wondered if he would just drive off and lough at Joey falling when the car moved.  
"Unlike you, I don't feel uncomfortable looking a bit dishevelled", Joey smirked while Kaiba sat in the car and started it. Then, to Joey's surprise, he leaned outside and looked at Joey directly.  
"What now, are you getting in or do you prefer to fetch yourself a meningitis just because you couldn't miss having a chat with me?"  
This time, Joey raised his brows. He was surprised for a second, but then quickly untangled his arms and hurried around the front of the car to jump in on the other side.  
"Belt up", Kaiba ordered while closing the door loudly, but didn't wait for Joey to do so before driving out of the parking onto the street.  
Joey hurried to fasten his seat belt as Kaiba's driving style could only described as 'swift', and looked straight ahead at the traffic in front, waiting for Kaiba to say something and wondering why he had been invited to this trip, whereever it went.  
"Where are you heading to, home?", Kaiba asked without taking his eyes off the street.  
Joey was mildly surprised. Was Kaiba honestly going to take him home? It was a twenty minutes drive in the wrong direction for him.  
"Yes, but... You don't have to take me all the way, really, I wasn't even -"  
Kaiba cut him off by saying: "It's fine, it's not that much of a bother. I was going north anyway."  
"Huh? Aren't you going to the office?"  
Kaiba did raise his gaze for a second to look at Joey this time, though it wansn't more than a quick glance: "No. I have an appointment uptown."  
"Ah", Joey just said, then fell silent again. He didn't know what to talk about, or rather, he didn't dare to talk about the things he had wanted to. So all he brought out finally was: "Do you know where to go?"  
"Yes. Murakami Street, right?"  
Joey was surprised again, muttering a low "yeah, right", but felt he should have known afterwards. Kaiba was a control freak. And Joey had to enroll with his personal data when applying for battle city, so Kaiba had easy access to this information.  
They were silent for another while and Joey, though he was thankful for the ride, sort of feared he wouldn't have achieved anything before the time was up.  
"So. What did you want?", Kaiba finally inquired.  
"Uhm, I... I sort of..."  
"Spit it out."  
"Yeah, alright, alright. So, it was just, I... I thought... I saw that you kind of didn't get rid of that... thing and..."  
"Yes. I'm working on it."  
"How?"  
"Hm?", Kaiba blinked once, then turned his head to face him quizzically, as if he hadn't gotten the question.  
"How do you ged rid of this?"  
He seemed to decide if he was willing to answer, but today appeared to be his good day, as he not only did answer but also refrained from any snide remarks about Joey's missing knowledge while explaining.  
"I use a psychological process called habituation. It's based on the fact that being exposed to a certain stimulous without the expected consequences will cause the conditioning to weaken."  
"Ah... that sounds... reasonable", Joey said, frowning. "How d'ya do it?"  
"What?", Kaiba asked, it sounded a bis distracted, while he turned right smoothly on a big intersection.  
"Well, like... You need a stimulus, right? So, how do you produce it? Can't just say it yourself, I guess, and I'm pretty sure you won't ask Mokuba, und well... I guess nobody else knows, right?"  
Kaiba gave him another one of these short intense looks, but when he turned back to the street, he pursed his lips a bit, then his left hand tapped the steering wheel a couple of times before it came up to rubb his temple. "I have a recording", he said quietly but not too low.  
Joey swallowed heavily, thinking about the implied process, but then just tried to be casual and ignore the image as he said: "Sooo... How's it going?"  
Kaiba flashed a look in the back mirror, then one over his shoulder before turning this time.  
"Not as well as I had hoped."  
"Huh. Uhm. I see", Joey felt uncomfortable by now, probably because he felt Kaiba felt uncomfortable and he didn't fully know what he had to expect if Kaiba had enough of his interrogation. Still, he could not really quieten his curiousity.  
"So, the recording, is it -"  
"It is an original, yes." This time Kaiba answered right away. He also seemed to have straightened a bit. Maybe because this was the most intimate question so far. Maybe because he thought at his most vulnerable position he should stand up the tallest. Joey couldn't defend his mind against the picture sharpening with the detail information, Kaiba in his office, or bedroom, on the floor, struggeling, gasping, his fingernails scratching the wooden floor, his shoe soles sliding over it helplessly. He wanted to say something, something that would make the image go away, but all he could say was:  
"Will it work?"  
This time, Kaiba didn't answer.  
"Why doesn't it?"  
"I don't fully know. I can only imagine that at least one reason is that... the recording I use is... very intense. It might be more efficient to use something... simpler first."  
"But?"  
"But I haven't found anything suitable yet."  
"Huh. I see", Joey said again, letting silence fall between them again. He had only five more minutes and he still hadn't really said what he had wanted to say. But he didn't know how. He didn't even fully know what it was he wanted to say.  
Kaiba surprised him once again as he carried on the conversation himself.  
"Why did you do it?", he asked calmly.  
"Do what?"  
"Why did you help me earlier?"  
"Oh uhm...", Joey could have thought he would ask, on the other hand he had expected Kaiba to try and ignore the incident if possible. "I just pictured if I wouldn't, it would ruin the game and, sort of... It would have been a real pain in the ass for you to explain shit, you know... And... I also think, well, you know. There was a lot of people and... It would be known all about rather quickly and i guess that's kinda... dangerous?"  
"How considerate", Kaiba said, this time not looking at him.  
"Uh. Yeah...?"  
Another pause, then Kaiba said: "You are looking for a job, aren't you?"  
"I... yeah"  
"I want to offer you one."  
"You uh... What?"  
"I want to offer you a job. Your help might come of use. I would pay you a fair wage."  
"What, you mean... You would pay me for... I, are you sure you would want me to... I mean, me of all people?", Joey suddenly stuttered.  
"It seems I can trust you more than I thought. And you gave me the impression you are a slight amount brighter than I have given you credit for most of the time."  
"That's uhm, nice...", Joey gave back, confused now but not sure of in a good or bad way. What Kaiba had said was a compliment. Though the way he had phrased it wasn't that kind. He sort of doubted that Kaiba was able to phrase anything kinder than this.  
"So. What do you say?"  
"I... How often you think you need me... for this?"  
"Not that often. Two times a week are probably sufficient. And not for more than an hour I would say."  
"That's not a lot."  
"I know. I don't have infinite amounts of time to waste on this, also... It is, turns out, rather... exhausting."  
"Yeah. I see..."  
"You say that a lot."  
"I know."  
Kaiba gave him a look. Joey gave him a little, careful, kind of sheepy smile. Surprisingly, Kaiba's mouth corner twitched into something like a soft... neutral face. It wasn't a smile. If it hadn't been for the movement of the lips, Joey hadn't even seen a difference. But compared to before, it was only the slightest bit softer, warmer.  
"Are you really sure of this? Because, you know, you and I haven't been on best terms as of late, or... any other time really, and I can't imagine this will be... pleasant."  
"You are right. And I would never consider this if I saw another way. But unfortunately, I don't. And in the light of what happened today, I cannot risk this to go on further."  
"Ok... Yeah.", Joey responded, carefully biting back the 'I see' this time.  
"We're there", Kaiba suddenly said, pulling into the street Joey lived in, a narrow alley without a single spot of green and raws of identical boring concrete square buildings.  
"Good, good! Thank you!"  
When Kaiba stopped second raw in front of the number 54, he turned around completely, giving Joey a rather stern look. Than he leaned forward, reaching out for him, and Joey stared at him in confusion, nearly fear, before he understood Kaiba was reaching for the glovebox in front of him. He opened it one-handedly and fished out a little card from a jumbled heap, then he sat back up, withdrew a pencil from somewhere in his uniform and quickly wrote something on the back of the card, leaning it against the steering wheel, before handing it to Joey.  
"This is the number of my secretary. I will instruct her. I want you to settle all the conditions with her on the telephone, then make an appointment. I will prepare a trade for the both of us to sign for the first session."  
"Uh, ok, uhm... Great, great...", Joey stuttered while looking down on the number, then turning the paper to find it was Kaiba's businesscard. With his private cellphone number. And e-mail. And address. It was strange. He looked down, turning the card back and forth between his fingers, before looking up.  
"You know, you could have just asked and we could have settled it as a, you know, favor or something. Buy me for lunch as a thanks, or whatever. That's what people do."  
"I don't ask for favors", Kaiba answered, unimpressed: "And I pay the worth of things."  
"Ok. Yeah, fine", Joey said, grabbing his bag and opening the door, then leaving the car, looking back astrangedly.  
"Wheeler", Kaiba said, drawing Joey's attention back, so Joey leaned down and looked at him inside the car, waiting for him to continue: "One more thing", Kaiba said, and after a curt nod from Joey, said: "I would like to ask you not to..."  
"I won't. Don't worry."  
Kaiba gave him the look again, the look one step in the direction of a smile.  
"Oh, and Kaiba", Joey said: "One more thing." He flashed him a grin: "If we are going to work together: Don't call me Wheeler."  
"Fine", Kaiba answered, though he seemed surprised by it, raising his eyebrows in his soft, elegant way: "Joseph, then?"  
"Yeah. That's fine. If you must."  
Kaiba gave him a nod, then Joey returned it, and shoved the car door closed.


	3. Getting started

Joey gave the secretary a short nodd when he entered the lobby on the upper floor of the tower, which was 24 actually, and a look out of the glass front told him it was really freaking high. He strode over to her desk hesitantly, but felt better when she smiled at him in a not too warm but still polite and inviting way. She put a clipboard on the counter for him and pointed out a line in the end. "Mr. Wheeler, I assume", she said: "I must ask you to show me your ID before signing in your presence in this paper."  
Joey couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes. It was so like Kaiba to make a fuss out of something other people settled by handshake.  
He spent about a minute rummaging in his schoolbag, finally putting the ID on the counter and nearly rolling his eyes again as the brunette took it and studied it carefully, as if one look at the photo hadn't been enough. On the other hand, he thought, he shouldn't complain. He was paid for this session as much as he would be for a whole day working in a supermarket or waiting a café. He hadn't meant to ask for twelve bugs an hour, not one penny less, but the secretary hadn't even asked, only told him what Kaiba's standard salary for consulting assistence was and that if he didn't agree with this he was very welcome to negotiate with Kaiba over it. He's nearly keeled over but finally just croaked: "No, it's fine, really, I uh... think that... will suffice."  
After he had put down his name in the empty line, the took the board off the counter, only to replace it with another, indicating the empty line on this one, too. "This is a standard non-disclosure agreement I will have to ask from you, too, before going on to the contract which Kaiba-sama presigned for you.  
Joey looked at her for a moment, feeling a sudden urge to tell her he would rather just wait for Kaiba to tell him to put all this freaking paperwork up his ass, but in the end he bit his lip started reading. It wasn't that much even. Though the paragraph about the consequences of violating the agreement did make him kick Kaiba's ass again, though he knew this wasn't meant for him but for every single human being making so much as a cup of coffee for Mr. So-important-Kaiba-sama.  
He signed the paper a bit faster and edgier than he had been planning on, then shoved it back on the counter, only to find it replaced by another clipboard, this time with a little stack of papers on it.  
"This is the contract Kaiba-sama prepared for your cooperation", she explained: "You are welcome to sit and study it calmly. You have all the time you need. Kaiba-sama asked me to notify him when you were ready to see him. Can I offer you something to drink in the meantime?" She smiled at him again, and this time, looking down at the stack of sheets, he didn't feel that angry anymore. He looked back up and smiled back: "A cup of tea would be great if it's not that much of a bother", he said, scratching his neck sheepishly.  
"Not at all", she said, then got up from behind the counter and nodded over to sofa in an alcoven-like corner with a couple of armchairs and a coffee table before vanishing through a door.  
Joey stood there looking after her for a while, but then just decided the sooner he started the sooner this was being over. So he settled in one of the chairs not too close to the glass.

The contract, Joey found over his cup of very well prepared green tea, was suprisingly fair. It determined his salary and how it was paid (a single check he was invited to fetch himself from the secretary for every session or otherwise be mailed to him if he didn't come to get it, eight to nine sessions per month, another privacy agreement and a pragraph about the termination of the concept (any of them was allowed to terminate it without previous notice at any given time by oral annunciation, which was considerate, Joey thought, thinking about how it was always possible with the two of them ending literally everything in an utter desaster).  
When he was done, he came back to the counter and signed the papers in front of the girl, looking at Kaiba's very neat and elegant signing on every page. It looked like an elementary pupil had made a contract with a lawyer now. He crinched.  
"May I inform Kaiba-sama you are ready to see him now?", the woman asked with her polite smile. Joey frowned and nodded. He expected her to get up and go somewhere, but she simply pressed a button behind the counter and said: "Kaiba-sama. Mr. Wheeler is awaiting you in the lobby, Sir." In the background, Joey heard the busy noise of keyboard clicking that didn't even stop when Kaiba said: "Give me three more minutes."  
The secretary gave Joey an excusing look, her head slightly tilted, and after nothing happened, Joey found he was probably asked for his agreement, so he hurried to say: "Of course", and the secretary said: "He is informed, sir." Then she let go of the button and the rustling noise stopped.  
"I will uhm, just... sit over there and wait, right?"  
She nodded and smiled. "And – Mr. Wheeler. Perhaps you might like to take this with you", she said and opened a drawer, closed it, then put a thin paper on the counter. Joey looked down at it. It was a check over 15.000 Yen. He stared at it. Then grabbed it hurriedly and shoved it in his bag. He'd never ever made so much money with so few effort, but she really didn't have to know that.  
Then he sat and waited in patience. When he looked at the big watch on the wall over the secretary's counter, he found three minutes were over. Five actually. He started seesawing back and forth with his feet and leaned forward, looking down the corridor in boredom, searching for something, anything to direct his attention to for a couple of minutes, but this right second the door at the very end of the corridor opened and Kaiba came out, suitcase in one hand, jacket in the other, not his kick-ass white updraft-coat but a normal business suit jacket in dark grey, fitting the rest of his outfit just perfectly, dark grey trousers, black, smooth leather shoes, white dress shirt, collar open, tie losely around his neck. He put the jacket over is arm to have a free hand, then closed the door behind him noiselessly.  
When he turned around, his gaze found Joey's, and he nodded swiftly, then walked over. He stopped in front of the counter and put his suitcase on the ground, then whipped on his jacket, pulled the tie from his neck and freed his hair from the inside of his collar with both hands in a gesture close to feminine but not quite, before reaching into his jacket and letting the tie disappear somewhere in there.  
"Has everything worked out well?", he asked and bent down to fetch his suitcase, then straightened and looked at his secretary over the counter. Joey saw the way the woman looked at Kaiba throwing over the jacket, doing the thing with his hair, and he knew exactly what was going on. The boss and his secretary. What a cliché. Although to be fair he didn't know if Kaiba saw it the same way. He hadn't ever spent a single thought on Kaiba's sexuality ever and it didn't feel right to do so now, so he just decided he would pretend not to have seen anything.  
"Everything's settled, Sir", she said, smiling her polite smile, though it seemed to be a little more fond now.  
"Good evening to you", Kaiba said, taking a brief look at the watch above her: "When do you start tomorrow?"  
"Late shift, thirteen o'clock, Sir", she answered, and Kaiba nodded again, before correcting: "Good rest, then." He nodded one last time. Joey got up from his armchair and threw the bag over his shoulder the second Kaiba turned around. He nodded him again. He nodded a lot lately.  
"Are you ready?", he asked.  
"Yeah. Where are we going?", Joey asked back. He had kind of thought they would stay here when he was invited to his office in the first place.  
"Home", Kaiba simply anwered, and when he saw Joey's quizzical face, he added: "Didn't want you to stray around the houses if you wouldn't find it, so I figured I'd fetch you where you couldn't miss it."  
"Huh. Nice", Joey said, not sure if it was nice or the exact opposit of it. He scratched his head when Kaiba got into the elevator and he followed, feeling like, well, like a dog staying heel to his master. But Kaiba didn't comment on it. He probably was very accostumed to leading people around, or rather, to people following his every step.  
They didn't get off at the ground-floor but one below. It turned out to be a parking. It turned out also Kaiba's BMW was parked about ten feet from the elevator door. He obviously had the pole position in here. Figures.  
They got in the car in silence. Only when they hit the street, this time Joey fastened his seat belt unasked for, ignoring that Kaiba didn't, Kaiba asked: "So, are the conditions of the contract to your satisfaction?"  
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely."  
"I assumed so", Kaiba said, drawing his mouth-corners up this two millimeters as he'd done the other day. There was a little pause before he asked: "How was your day?"  
"Well you saw me sleeping on the table so I guess you know how it was."  
Kaiba gave a soft snort, this time his right mouth-corner made it all the way up, though he didn't look at him. Then he kept silent. It occured to Joey only now that this had been an attempt at polite conversation, and he had just killed it. Whatever, he thought, they would have to spend another hour with each other, maybe it was best not to exploit every socially acceptable topic they could share. Still, the next five minutes were an utter pain in the ass. He tried to appear bored or relaxed, looking out of the window, when the truth was he dreadded the moment they would arrive and start with... this... really weird thing.  
They got out of the car in the same silence they got in, but now there was more to look at. Joey raised his eyebrows looking at the huge mansion, the overly clean cut grass and the high iron fence around the estate.  
"Don't dawdle, come", Kaiba instructed and Joey rolled his eyes and hurried after him. At least he hadn't said 'heel' this time. They climbed the stairs to the huge front doors but didn't open those but used a normal entrance door next to the gate. Kaiba didn't even fiddle with his keys, making Joey wonder if it had even been locked at all.  
He followed Kaiba inside into an entrance hall with a big wardrobe by the gate. When Kaiba put down his jacket and suitcase, then laid his keys on the shelve, Joey did the same, getting rid of his thick winter coat, scarf and bag, shoes. He looked down at his old striped socks.  
"Will I need anything?", he asked Kaiba, who was already half way through the hall.  
"Not as far as I am concerned. Do you fancy a drink?"  
"What drink?", Joey asked confusedly. "You mean, like a, a whiskey or something?"  
"For example."  
"Oh, uhm, no... No, thanks!", Joey answered, hurrying after Kaiba before he was gone and he was lost all alone in this huge thing.  
When he got around the corner, he found Kaiba in a modern kitchen pouring himself a carafe of water, or at least he guessed it was water, because if it was vodka, it was enough to make a horse keel over.  
When he spotted Joey in the door, he gave him a curt nod before putting two slices of cucumber and lemon into the carafe, then he took it in one hand and opened an overhead cupboard, got two slim water glasses out, put them on the counter, closed the cubboard and stacked the glassed over each other before taking them and walking over Joey's way. "Let's go", he ordered. "Up the stairs if you will please."  
Joey turned around quickly and looked up the stairs. Everything in this house was geometrical, modern, bright and smooth. There was huge windows, a lot of light-coloured wood and steel, though not a lot of furniture as far as he could see. Joey slowed down to allow Kaiba to catch up easily as he found he didn't know where to go, and Kaiba went on leading him down a corridor and through a door into a big room that was pretty different from the rest of the house. First of all, it was packed with stuff. The walls were covered with bookshelves up to the ceiling, containing books in neat raws next to each other, but also more books squeezed into the small empty slits between the books and the boards above. There were some books stacked on the ground, too, and on the window sills, on the edge of a huge desk with three big monitors and a notebook on it, on a little coffee table in the middle of the room and even on the armchairs around it. Kaiba shoved some of them aside to make room for the glasses and carafe, then unstacked the glasses and set them im front of two opposed chairs, took a book stack from the one he nodded Joey to take a seat on and put it on the desk, then took the other stack off his own before sitting down.  
"So this is your...", Joey asked hesitantly.  
"It's my study, yes", he answered, crossed his legs and leaned forwars elegantly to put both hands on his upper knee, leaning on it casually. Still, Joey could see he wasn't feeling that much at ease anymore when he leaned forward and poured water into both glasses, his gaze was unsteady, his mouth opened for a second, closed again, then he put the carafe down and let his eyes wander the room.  
"If you have more questions, I think you should ask them now", he said, as if implying there were important things unsaid.  
"Are you sure you are fine with this?", Joey asked, frowning, watching Kaiba closely now.  
"No", he said obligingly, putting his hands on his knee again. "But I fear it is indispensible for the success of this."  
"Uh, well, I... I've been meaning to ask..." Joey bit his lip, squirming on his chair, then drew up a knee and embraced it with both arms: "I know you didn't want to tell me last time, but... What was this for?"  
Kaiba didn't get angry as he had feared. He licked his lip quickly before answering: "It was a disciplinary action."  
"What... What does that mean?"  
"It means it was very important for my legal guardian to make sure I was behaving... appropriate at any given moment, especially in public. So there was a quick and efficient measure in need to make sure I stopped being... demanding."  
"What d'yo mean, demanding?"  
"Asking questios. Argueing. Claiming things."  
"What things?"  
"Things I thought were essential for my well being as a child."  
"Like what?"  
"Like seeing my brother for example."  
"Oh, uh... I see."  
As Kaiba only looked at him sternly, he figured there was at least one more question he was expected to ask. But the one he had in mind he didn't want to ask. On the other hand... It was their time, and Kaiba had invited him to ask all his questions, so...  
"I understand, when conditioning someone, you need a stimulus, and you need a... well, a consequence, right?", he asked, slowly, careful not to miss the moment Kaiba understood what he was driving at and get angry, but Kaiba seemed to know exactly where he was driving at though he wasn't stopping him. On the other hand, he didn't rid him of the duty to phrase the damn question. "So uhm... there was a... a... consequence, right?"  
"There was."  
"What was it?"  
Kaiba looked at him for a moment, then raised his hand to his temple, his fingertips touching the skin featherly as if in thought.  
"It was rather simple actually. He would just... tell me to... kneel. And if I didn't, he would make me. Whatever it took."  
Joey swallowed again, his hands straddling his jeans uncomfortably. "So, now... when someone tells you to kneel, you..."  
"I still feel it."  
"What... exactly?"  
This time, Kaiba stayed quiet again.  
"Uhm... Well I... guess that's enough...", Joey stuttered, his cheeks feeling hot.  
"What I feel is not the problem. The problem is that I seem to be... unable to...", he broke off awkwardly, but didn't let the pause become too distinct: "I hadn't thought it would work with other people. It never happened to me after him... It was only then a couple of month ago that I understood his death didn't delete the pattern.  
"I see", Joey said again, biting his lips but it was already out. "Who else knows?", he quickly asked.  
"No-one", Kaiba said calmly.  
"Will you show me the recording?"  
"No."  
"Oh uh... Ok." He felt sort of crappy now. He didn't want to go on asking. And he didn't want to do what he was here for. He didn't want to see that and he didn't want to be the cause of it even more. He didn't even know what to do at all.  
"What am I supposed to do?", he asked quietly after a while.  
Kaiba frowned and leaned forward, rubbing his forehead with his fingertips. "I think just saying it should be enough", he finally said. Then he stood and slowly walked over to an empty spot in front of the desk, facing Joey. They looked at each other for a while, Joey took his time to muster Kaiba, his slacks, narrow but not tight with a real crease in front, his white silky shirt, absolutely unwrinkled, his tidy hair, his stern posture and look, his hands at his sides, not closed to fists but not relaxed either. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth, then closed it again.  
"I... Can't, it's kinda, really", he stammered, but Kaiba cut him off: "For God's sake, just say it: It's not that difficult, I don't pay you for having a chat with me, if you're too much of a coward to do it, you are welcome to walk through that door and -"  
"Kneel!", Joey shouted.  
Kaiba fell forward inmediately. He gasped as his knees gave a sickening noise when colliding with the wooden floor. Then his torso snapped forward and he ended crouching in perfect seiza, forehead touching his hands on the floor. He took a deep breath, and only then raised his head to look at Joey.  
"You said that on purpose", Joey growled, seeing his face, bitter but in a way smug.  
"I don't know what you're talking about", Kaiba said, now using his hands to stem himself up. He got on all fours rather well, but then when trying to get one knee from the ground, his arms started shaking from the strength it took him.  
"Get up", Joey ordered. He shot up.  
"Can you keep upright when I give you a good chance to prepare?"  
"I don't know. I'll see."  
"Ok, I'll count to three, yeah?", he said. Kaiba got his feet apart to bead seat and stared at him in concentration, even seemed to bite his teeth.  
"Three... Two... One...", Joey bit his lip a bit when he saw Kaiba's hands shake from the tension, then he said, soft this time: "Go on your knees." He saw the impact it had on Kaiba immediately. He heard the gasp, he saw the face, pained, the shaking hands, the stiff posture, his upper body bending forward a bit while his legs stemmed against it like a skier on a hill, but he didn't get down. It was like an accident, Joey thought, he couldn't stop watching. "Come on", he said, grabbing his own arm rest as in compassion.  
Kaiba gasped again, his hands shaking heavily, his head got up for a second. When their eyes locked, Joey saw even his bottom lip trembled, his cheeks were turning red, but he managed to get his back straight, then he stood, his whole body shaking, straight and tensed like a bent bow, his hands shot up in his hair and his fingers curled in, like tearing it. I was about 40 seconds now, the watch told Joey, and Kaiba's cheeks were burning and there seemed to be a little trace of sweat on his temple. Only when he faced the ceiling and his mouth opened like in slow motion and a noise came out, a noise Joey had never heard, like a wounded animal, something choked and pained, like a cry but less human, he felt an hour of this was probably measured very very long.  
"Let... me... go!", Kaiba rasped in between the noises, as if two different throats made those, and Joey had the feeling those words were not directed at him, but he acted anyway.  
"Stop!", he ordered, and the noise stopped immediately, as well as the heavy shaking, leaving only a slight tremble. His legs seemed to slump a bit, his whole body actually, but without leaving his upright posture, then his face tilted down to Joey. He was panting, Joey realized. He let his hands fall from his hair and a few ripped hairs sailed to the ground. He just stood there. Panting. Trembling.  
"Well, that was much bloody better than before", Joey finally said.  
Kaiba didn't answer at all. He let his gaze wander the room, while he opened the buttons on his sleeves, which took about three times longer than it would usually have, and rolled them up to the ellbow. He wondered if Kaiba regretted his whole idea now.  
"Go on", he said, when his sleeves were tucked up neatly.  
"Have some water", Joey suggestes, buying himself another minute. Kaiba looked at him astrangedly, but did, however, step forward to the table and bent down gracefully to take his glass. His free forearm rubbed over his fave while he had some small sips, then he put the glass down.  
"Now. Go on", he ordered, stepping back to the empty spot.  
"You know, maybe it's easier when you, kinda, hold on to something, you know, like, the desk or what."  
Kaiba gave him a hard glance, but then slowly walked over to his desk, walked round it so he could lean forward on it while facing Joey, and nodded.  
"Uhm... Ready?", Joey asked, getting another nod for a response: "Ok, then uhm... kneel?."  
Kaiba's fingers scratched into the wood of the desk, when he leaned forward slightly, biting his teeth, his face down so his bangs hid half his face.  
"You have to... mean it", he finally croaked, making Joey feel even more embarressed when he said: "Kneel!", this time with a hard tone in his voice. It nearly made Kaiba slide under the desk, but he held on in the last second and pulled back up, grabbing the edge of the table. He was half lying on the desk by now, two or three books had fallen down, but he got back up. Joey watched him for another half a minute, then said: "Stop, get up." Kaiba literally slumped forward on the desk, his forehead on one arm in total exhaustion, fingers in his hair, he was breathing staying like this for a while, breathing heavily again, then pushed himself up with his other hand, facing Joey again. He looked like crap. His cheeks were hot and sweaty. His lashes hang tiredly over his eyes, his hair was tousled.  
"Take a break", Joey said, biting his lip again: "And maybe you should have something stronger than water."  
Kaiba looked at him for a moment, then his lips gave that half smirk. He stood up straight, then smoothed down his hair, clapped the front of his thighs as if trying to get rid of imaginary dust, then he strode over to a little overhead cupboard in the corner of the study, opened it and pulled a crystal bottle of something golden and premium labelled out, followed by two glasses. He brought both over to the coffee table and set the glasses down, pouring considerably more than a finger thick of liquid into them.  
"Here, have some, too, you are pale as a sheet", he said, this time it was a real smirk.  
"Look who's talking", Joey responded, smirking, too.  
Kaiba took his glass before sitting down in his chair and stretching his long legs, placing his feet lazily crossed on the chair next to him. Then he took a sip of his glass.  
Joey followed his example, only to half spit his sip back into the glass. "Gosh, that's gross!", he explaimed, suddenly very aware of the grimace on his face ans the rudeness of that. "I mean, it's uh... unusual... for me...?"  
Kaiba laughed. Not the mean arrogant crazy laugh he usually gave, but a real laugh. His body was strangely turned in intself from the legs going more to the side then forward, and his back rested half on the back-, half on the armrest, while the forearm of his free hand was confortably and kind of gracefully thrown over the arm rest, the other hand on the glass that balanced on the slim other armrest. It looked a bit messy, but also very graceful. Joey had to wonder how Kaiba managed to look like something the cat dragged in, hanging over his chair like a wet cloth, but at the same time possess so much air of power and elegance around him. Maybe it was just his person. Maybe he looked powerful in everything he did. Powerful yawning over the first cup of coffee in the morning. Powerful toothbrushing. Powerful making himself a sandwich.  
He wasn't trembling anymore. But he was still breathing visibly, his nostrils widening periodically with it. "Drink it anyway", he instructed, and took a big gulp of his glass, though not emptying it completely. Maybe, emptying it would have meant the break was over.  
"An hour is much, actually", Joey said after a moment of looking into his glass, wondering if Kaiba would notice if he'd empty it in one of the plants by the window later.  
"It is."  
"We shouldn't overdo it. Better we succeed a couple of times than trying too often and failing."  
Kaiba raised his eyebrows. He seemed surprised, though he didn't give him the dog bisquit look this time, only watched him for a while, then let his head lean against the back rest.  
"This is more than I achieved in three month", he finally said.  
Joey gave him a hesitant smile: "Then I think we succeded. Let's call it a day."  
Truth was, he hadn't been too keen on this from the beginning, but now Kaiba looked like crap and tormenting him further would have made him feel exponentially much worse.  
For a moment, he thought Kaiba would protest, but then he just rubbed his forearm over his forehead and jerked his head slightly, making his thick bangs fall back deep in his face, and nodded, before adding: "Empty your glass, then, you are dismissed."


	4. Any weird touching

"Hope you haven't practiced, would be a bummer if you destroyed all the progress we've made", Joey grinned while toeing off his shoes four days later down in the entrance hall. Kaiba rolled his eyes and nodded him from the stairs. "Glad you made it", he said instead of a hello and waited until Joey had his fifty layers of clothes on the wardrobe. "Come", he then reinforced his nodding, and disappeared.  
Joey mirrored Kaiba, rolling his eyes when he wasn't looking, but followed him up the stairs and into the study. It looked exactly like last time, only that Kaiba had freed the coffee table and desk of any books, so there were a couple of extra stacks on the floor now.  
"Don't you think you have too many books?", Joey asked, letting his gaze float over what had to be thousands and thousands of books.  
"Only an illiterate like you could ask such question", Kaiba answered, his eyes falling over all the book covers while they wandered through the room: "I do fear there are a few new shelves in need, though", he added thoughtfully.  
"And where are you gonna put those, with the walls already taken up to the ceiling?"  
"There is a library downstairs...", Kaiba answered, but then ripped his eyes away and focused on Joey.  
"Did you find here comfortably?", he asked, while walking over to his secret booze stash alias the place with the expensive cognac that tasted like grave earth.  
"Sure", Joey answered, thinking of something polite to add, to keep the conversation up he knew Kaiba was only offering to make him feel less misplaced, but he couldn't think of anything, so Kaiba went on:  
"I can have a driver fetch you next time, it is a long way after all, especially in winter."  
"No! No, god!", Joey blurted out, waving his hands frantically: "You're paying me way too much for this half an hour, you cannot send a driver, too! I'd feel like crap!"  
Kaiba turned around in the middle of pouring Cognac in two glasses to see Joey's face. There was a smirk on his eyes. A real one. And a half one on his lips, too. Joey couldn't help but think this time he had said something right. Not in the way that earned him a dog bisquit but in the way he had actually done something pleased Kaiba not only for the low standards he set for Joey. "If you say so", he answered, before turning back to stash the cognac away.  
"Actually, I thought... Well, you kinda pay me an unreasonable amount of money for this, you know, and I thought, it is probably only fair if I put some effort in it, then. So I did some research, and I think I kinda, you know, I've thought of something that might help."  
It was hard not to blush this time, when Kaiba turned around with a glass in each hand, gracefully held from above between two fingers without touching the rim directly, and gave him a look of what seemed to be real curiosity, and, maybe, appreciation.  
"Let me hear your thoughts, then", he said softly, as if trying very hard not to be his usual self.  
It made Joey blush now indeed.  
"I...", he stuttered: "So, you see, we were trying to ease the conditioning by habitualisation", he concentrated very carefully on this one, knowing he would completely spoil Kaiba's benevolence if he'd mispronounce. "But I think there is another way that might, at least for the beginning, be worth trying. It's probably faster, you know. And more secure. So less chance to backslide. Kinda."  
Kaiba raised his brows and opened his lips slightly, halting for a moment directly in front of Joey, then he reached out the glass to him so he could comfortably take it without any weird finger brushing, which Joey did, before he sat, crossed his legs and his hands on his upper knee.  
"So, anticonditioning", he said, as if it was the most obvious thing of the world that Joey was referring to this. Joey just stared at him in confusion. Then, he scolded himself internally. How could he have honestly assumed he would tell Kaiba something new, something he hadn't known or considered before...? "Yes", he said quietly, biting his lip.  
"I am glad you took the time to think about the problem. And you are right. It is, indeed, a very promising method."  
"Uh... yeah?", Joey asked in surprise, sitting up a bit straighter.  
"Yes", Kaiba simply answered, not giving anything else away.  
"Why haven't you tried it before, then?", Joey inquired, shifting on his chair impatiently now.  
"I couldn't think of a way to implement it myself. It is a normal conditioning, after all, only using triggers that have already been taken. Positive reinforcement is, whatsoever, only effective when done very promptly after the trigger, and I didn't seem to be able to do this alone."  
That made sense to Joey, and also, it meant this had actually been a good idea. It sort of made him proud, an air of self-esteem suddenly radiating him. "You're not alone, now. So we should give it a try."  
"That sounds like you actually had a plan", Kaiba said, frowning slightly, which caused Joey to beam somewhat brighter even. "I do!", he agreed, getting up. Kaiba was about to stand, too, but Joey raised both hands defensively: "No, no, keep there!" Kaiba's frown deepened, and even more when Joey walked around his chair. Kaiba had his hands on the arm rests suddenly, following Joey's movement with his head, and only stopped when he would have had to turn around his whole body in the chair. "What are you doing?", he inquired, calm but far from comfortable.  
"Don't worry, I won't do anything, just keep sitting straight."  
Kaiba slowly turned back and let his hands brush softly over the armrests until they slid over the front edge, hanging from his supported forearms.  
"Do you mind being touched?", Joey asked carefully, tensing a bit himself in worry Kaiba would react badly to this.  
"Depends on what kind", he said as if casually, but that could not hide the way his torso was as straight as it could get, his neck looking even longer with his shoulders pushed down nearly forcibly so there was a visible crack in the middle of his shoulder blades, causing the silken fabric of his dress-shirt to fold up.  
"Ok, here is what I'm gonna do, ok? If you don't want me to, just say so anytime", he didn't make a pause for Kaiba to do so just now, though: "So, usually, when the signal came, you were pushed down. You are conditioned to that. Right? So, I want you to memorize whenever you get the signal, you are being held up."  
"Held up?", Kaiba asked, his head turning up and back to look at Joey. There was an actual question mark in his face. A worried one, too.  
"Yeah. Bodily. That easy. Wanna try?"  
Kaiba seemed to consider, but then said: "How?"  
"How what?"  
"How will you 'bodily hold me up?'"  
"Uhm... Like that?", he provided, laying his hands on Kaiba's upper arms, then grabbing them carefully. The muscles under the fabric jerked, then tensed to stone.  
"I'm not gonna hurt you, I swear", he said, feeling stupid the second the words left his mouth. Kaiba gave a snort as if to emphasize his very thought.  
"Good. Go on", he said, his stare fixed at a point somewhere in the back of the room. His hands crept up to the end of the arm rests. His long fingers wound around it like the legs of a spider. For a moment Joey thought he had stopped breathing, but then found his breath was just going incredibly slow, controlled.  
"Kneel!", Joey spit out. He got Kaiba by surprise this time, so he could easily watch all the reactions to the order. Kaiba's hands clenching the armrests, his feet sliding to the heavy table for support, the tensing of his neck when he pulled his chin down, bit his teeth, closed his eyes in concentration, and pressed against the backrest with all his might.  
Only then, Joey bent down and shoved his arms over the backrest of the armchair and Kaiba's shoulders, then crossed them over his breast and gripped his arms. It felt strange for a second, as it was practically an embrace from behind, only there was a chair between them, but he decided he would not care, this was professional after all, didn't mean he'd hug any Kaiba at any other time.  
"Ease up, he said: "I don't let go. I keep you in that chair, if it's the last fucking thing I do today, I promise!" Kaiba didn't ease up. In the contrary. He convulsively moved forward first, against the pressure on his chest, but let himself be pulled back against the backrest after a while. Joey bit his teeth from the effort, but only grabbed Kaiba's arms tighter until after a while, Kaiba's feet slid away from the table, his legs partially stretching. After another half a minute, Kaiba's hands, white as the wall by now, lost some of their violent force.  
"Good! Great! Absolutely great!", Joey said, beaming like the sun. He felt Kaiba's chest stopping the soundless heaving for a short hard laugh, then going back to the deep breathing.  
"You fine?", Joey inquiered, only now noticing he was the one kneeling now. He hadn't even noticed, but found, it was much easier that way. His chin was nearly touching Kaiba's hair now.  
"Absolutely", Kaiba croaked, even now causing Joey to roll his eyes.  
"What about some stress test?"  
"Do whatever you please", Kaiba only said, getting his breathing to deepen and slow.  
Joey bit his lip and closed his eyes in an attempt to make the following moment disappear in advance, before shouting:  
"I said get the fuck on your knees you sorry excuse for a man!"  
He had aimed for a clearer reaction this time, though he had not reckoned it to look like this. Kaiba clutched the armrests as for his dear life for about two seconds, his legs snaked around the legs of the chair, his torso pressed against the backrest, and he didn't breath his time, only a moment later he gasped loudly and threw his head back to stare at the ceiling, nearly breaking Joey's nose in the movement, so Joey leaned closer, clutched him tighter. When Kaiba's arms came up, his first impulse was to hold them down, but they were too fast, too strong, and then Kaiba's hands clawed into his hair, tearing it. When Joey finally grabbed his wrists to try and release them, he saw Kaiba had shoved his hands all the way up the top of his head, exposing the sides of his head with the hair out of the way. There were little hairless spots and lines everywhere. He stared at it for a couple of seconds, before completely taking in Kaiba's pained stare and his strangled cry, and the sound of ripping hair.  
"Shit, stop!", Joey spit: "Stop, stop it! Get up!" Kaiba fell back limp in the chair like a puppet, his hands falling down, tiny strands of hair sailing to the ground as in slow motion.  
"God, this is insane!", Joey breathed, accusingly nearly.  
Kaiba didn't say a word, just sat there, flexing his fingers carefully, looking somewhere in the back of the room in a glassy, unseeing way.  
"Have a break. Then we’ll start all over.”  
Kaiba didn’t show a reaction, but Joey had learned by now this didn’t mean he hadn’t heard most of the time. So he just waited.  
After a while in total silence and immobility, he asked: “Are you ok?”  
“Of course I am”, Kaiba answered instantly. Joey didn’t push it, so he just gave him a break.  
“Kaiba?”, he asked carefully after a while.  
“Yes?”, Kaiba gave back, sounding something close to annoyed, but not rude.  
“You need to stop pulling your hair or you keep fulfilling your own –“, he said, voice gentle, and was promptly cut off by Kaiba.  
“I know!”, he just stated. “I know, I am trying, goddammit!”  
“I… I’m sorry”, Joey stammered, and took a deep breath. He had been ordered here. He had been asked for help. Kaiba had been extremely civil up to now and he hadn’t threatened nor insulted him, so he was probable to get away with a lot right now. He repeated that to himself while saying: “You only seem to do that when it’s really bad.”  
Kaiba gave a strange noise, like a snort that was cut short half way. He didn’t answer.  
When Joey raised his hands and combed them through Kaiba’s hair in a similar way he had just done himself, but more careful, softer, Kaiba’s head jerked up, his hands clenched on the arm rests. He was sure he had just done something forbidden, but for any reason Kaiba let him continue, so Joey was even more careful not to scratch or tear his hair or skin accidently.  
“Are these from when you were a child?”  
“It’s none of your business”; Kaiba said, finally raising his hands to pull Joey’s away, but Joey retreated them quickly to avoid any weird hand touching, then lay them on Kaiba’s shoulders.  
“Can we go on?”, he asked softly.  
“Go for it”, Kaiba said.  
“Kneel”, Joey said, noticing how it got easier to pronounce the word with every time he did.  
He saw Kaiba’s neck tense, his arms tense, his shoulders under his hands, but this time Joey kept his eyes on his hands. As long as they were wrapped tightly around the armrests, it was ok, but as soon as they would let go… “I said kneel, fuck it!”, he shouted, and this was the moment the hands let go. He caught them in mid-air and crossed them over Kaiba’s chest, pressing them up to his upper arms and held him tight like in a straightjacket. Kaiba made it for about another ten seconds, before his head whipped up to the ceiling again, his mouth opening, only this time no sound came out.  
“Stop it”, Joey said calmly, and the tension fell off, the breath in Kaiba’s lungs poured out slowly.  
“That ok?”, Joey asked carefully, and Kaiba nodded. When his fingers twitched, Joey let go of his hands, and Kaiba pulled them down, laying them on his thighs, clutching them loosely.  
“Of course”, he answered, a phrase Joey knew by now not to give a damn about.  
“I want to try one more thing. May I?”  
“Depends”, Kaiba answered. He kept his answeres curt, and Joey knew it was because his voice was husky and slightly out of breath.  
“It’s two things actually. One is – I want you to do everything – everything possible, to keep your hands away from your hair.” He waited for Kaiba to nod, and he did, and went on: “the other is: If you can’t, as soon as you can’t manage anymore: I want you to say ‘Stop’ and I will stop it. Alright?”  
Kaiba turned his head to the side for a second, but found he could not see Joey’s face anyway, and turned back. “Good”, he said, not giving any other sign of approval or disapproval.  
“Then, get on your knees, now!”, Joey ordered. He wound one arm around Kaiba’s chest to hold him against the backrest, clutching his shoulder, then waited. Kaiba didn’t move. He seemed to be in meditation. “Kneel, I said!”, Joey shouted, and it did what he had aimed for. The second, Kaiba’s hands clenched the wood frantically, and his face turned up, Joey raised one hand, and laid it on Kaiba’s forehead, causing Kaiba’s eyes to widen in surprise. They looked at each other now, Joey’s face was directly above Kaiba’s. Then he combed both hands his fingers through Kaiba’s bangs, slowly, gently, and he saw the pained expression under the surprise soften, the arched back relax the slightest bit, until Kaiba’s eyes fell shut. Joey stopped the movement of his hand when he had combed his fingers all the way to the side of Kaiba’s head, and he waited a while for anything to happen, but it was as if time had frozen.  
“Kneel”, he instructed again, this time with a soft voice. Kaiba’s hands tensed only slightly on the rests. Joey smiled. He let his other arm slip from Kaiba’s chest and straightened further, now bent over Kaiba upside down, and combed both hands through his hair in slow motion. “Kneel”, he said again, softly, and felt unbelievably proud when nothing happened at all. He let the moment linger around for a while.  
Then: “Kneel”, he repeated, louder, drawing a soft twitching from Kaiba, then again, harder: “Kneel!”, and he saw the hands tense, and then, one more time: “Kneel! For fuck’s sake, get on your –“, but Kaiba’s voice interrupted him: “Stop it!”, he snapped, and his hands came up. “Stop!”, Joey echoed in the split of a second, making Kaiba’s hands stop half way.  
He couldn’t help but pat Kaiba’s shoulders reassuringly: “See, how was that? Just awesome, that was – this works, it actually –“ he felt light headed, euphoric, but was cut off when Kaiba raised his hands to cover his, then wound the delicate fingers around them and eased them away. He let go quickly like he’d burned himself the second Kaiba rose from the chair and turned around. He was huge when he stood like this, back straight, proud posture, just the distance of one chair between them.  
“Are you fine?”, Joey asked lamely, looking up into Kaiba’s expressionless face while slowly straightening from his bent forward position.  
“Of course”, Kaiba answered lowly, like always, and stared down at him for another second. Joey frowned. He hadn’t ever seen his face like this. It was not the cold, emotionless stare. It was an empty, emotionless stare. And then, when Kaiba’s eyes fell off unfocused, facing the wooden floor, Joey reacted instinctively: “Sit!”, he ordered, and Kaiba sat on the edge of the coffee table, hands curled into the rim.  
Only now he fully understood Kaiba had been about to keel over. He didn’t say another thing, just stood there, waiting, ready to jump over the chair to keep Kaiba from sliding off the table. It took about a minute until his gaze slowly rose to meet Joey’s. Joey smiled carefully. Kaiba’s lips parted, and he blinked, and then, calmly, said: “I think that worked.”  
“It’s exhausting, isn’t it?”, Joey asked, worrying his lip.  
“Yes, but it’s promising.” He seemed very calm, very settled now, when he turned to the side and grabbed his glass, taking a good sip of Cognac, then leaned back on his free arm and crossed his legs. It nearly looked as if nothing had happened, but knowing Kaiba, who usually had a straight, energetic posture and an air of power and drive around him, it was clear he was half asleep.  
“Know what? We’re already past this stage anyways, so sit back down, I’ll show you something, will ya?”, Joey proposed, gesturing to the chair between them. Kaiba raised an eyebrow, but then got up without questioning him, and settled down in the chair, one leg over the other and both hands loosely on the glass on his knee,  
Joey felt strange about the way Kaiba just trusted him without even asking, and he worried if he actually had earned that. But if he didn’t, he would try to earn it now. He raised his hands and laid his fingertips on both sides of Kaiba’s temples, then stilled, doing nothing apart from keeping contact to the skin. Kaiba didn’t move. After a couple of seconds, he started moving his fingertips, drawing little circles.  
“This is called T-Touch”, he explained, keeping his voice soft and gentle. He didn’t say he had learned it as a technique to calm frightened or pained animals. It didn’t really matter anyways. It worked. Whatever it was invented for.  
Kaiba didn’t answer. He didn’t move. Only after a couple of minutes Joey noticed his head had sunk forward a bit, so slowly he hadn’t even noticed the movement.  
He moved his hands from the temples down, still circling, into his hair, and drew larger rounds, then finally placed his thumbs directly above the upper cervical vertebra, and brushed them up with a little pressure. Kaiba’s head fell forward, but then, as if taken aback, he tensed, but Joey kept him from snapping up, and hurried to say: “’S fine!”  
When he was sure Kaiba would stay in that posture, he put his hands on the temples again, but instead of moving to the sides, he put his fingertips up straight, allowing his fingernails to make soft contact with the skin, and drew them from the forehead over the top of his head deep down to his neck. The little hairs on Kaiba’s neck stood up. He did it again, this time applying a little pressure on his nails when starting on the forehead. This time, Kaiba did let his head fall back, giving way to the pressure, following the caressing fingers.  
His face was tired and peaceful, when it came up. The bangs were combed out of his face, falling to the side messily, but it didn’t make him look less intelligent or powerful. It just made him look like a normal person with actual, moving hair that didn’t always stay in place. Joey used a finger under Kaiba’s chin to make him tip his head all the way back until he was facing the ceiling again, then waited a moment, and finally found he could hold Kaiba’s head in his hands. He had completely given up the hold of his neck musculature. He combed through the hair once more from neck to forehead, then pushed the head back straight, moved it left and right slightly, then curtly tipped the temples with his fingertips.  
“I’m done. You fine?”, he said. Kaiba didn’t try to look at him this time. He just seemed to sink further into the chair und rose his glass to his lips.  
“I’m fine”, he said after a sip. There was a noise as if he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. Joey wondered if it had been a thank you. No way to tell for sure, thought.  
“You are dismissed”, he finally said.  
Joey frowned. He had expected something. Anything. But definitely not that. He didn’t know what to answer, and in the end he just stepped back from the chair and said: “Well, see you tomorrow”, then hurried out.  
He turned back when Kaiba answered: “See you”, and looked into his eyes for the split of a second. He sat there, straight and calm like a king on his throne with his glass in both hands, and his head tilted the slightest bit, and the look in his eyes was not tired anymore but very much awake, seeing, attentive. Though Joey couldn’t say what was going on behind those eyes at all.


	5. Let sleeping wolfs lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... two years later...  
> I'm sorry for everyone who has been reading this and has been hoping for un update that never came. I am a terrible writer...  
> Good news is: I did write on... So here's the new chapter. Currently writing on more, so please let me know if anyone is still out there reading this!

When Kaiba stepped out of the gym with tidy hair and full work dress, Joey was already waiting, leaning on the BMW with his hair wet and disheveled and a cheeky look in his attentive eyes, though not a full smile. Kaiba unlocked the car half way across the yard and Joey didn’t even wait for him but opened the passenger seat door and sat inside, letting his school bagfalling over his shoulder on the backseat lazily with one arm.  
When Kaiba entered he didn’t look at him but started the motor right away, pulling out of the parking lot quickly. “Buckle on”, he mumbled absentmindedly, and Joey did, though he was sure Kaiba woulnd’t even notice if he did or not.  
“Freezing outside, right?”, Joey mused casually, throwing in a peace of conversation to see if he could stop Kaiba from whatever he was contemplating right now that was not him.  
It must have achieved something, as Kaiba seemed to pull out of a thought, and it looked like for the first time today he became aware of the heavy snowing. He threw him a short gaze.  
“Have you washed your hair?” His voice sounded only mildly uninterested, but not hostile at all. He probably had gotten the hint and decided it was better to thrust whatever was on his mind to somewhere further inside his head.  
“Yeah, figured it wouldn’t be appropriate to stink like a sweatmonster in your tidy, glassy, moderny house.”

“My tidy glassy moderny house”, Kaiba repeated, his voice sort of lame, as if he was not sure what to think about this. He made a pause but then just continued: “Why have you asked me to antedate the meating?”  
Joey looked at him questioningly, first of all it was sort of strange to call this thing they did a ‘meating’, second he thought the answer to this question should be perfectly obvious.  
“Well first I didn’t ask you but I had to ask your secretary because I haven’t gotten to talk to you in private all day yesterday, and you know it would be a lot easier if you gave me your private phone number and by that I mean not the private one that is on your card and is answered by your secretary, because if I had been wanting to call your secretary I could have dialed her number, you know, like last time.” He could see Kaiba roll his eyes perfectly invisibly inside of his mind.  
“She doesn’t answer it all the time, I was in a meeting”, he explained courtly.  
Oh yes, a meeting, Joey thought, the some kind of meeting they were about to have right now, probably.  
“Next time just text me.”

There was a little silence and Joey thought, Kaiba was probably drifting off again to wherever he had been before, but suddenly he said: “So why?”  
Joey had already forgotten he ha had voiced that question before.  
“Well, because of the exam of course, because I don’t understand shit and I’m sure you know, as you make me feel like even more of an idiot in basically every maths class ever!”  
“Ah”, Kaiba just said, then another pause, then: “So you plan to study tonight.”  
“Yes of course, I plan that, because I don’t want to see that sneer on your face again like the one last time I failed and you were such a brat about it.”  
“You know, I don’t think it’s that freezing outside, and it sure looks like the blizzard is going to lighten up every moment. I think you might as well walk the rest of the way. You could think about maths some more and I could get some work done before you arrive in about… Two hours.”

This time Joey didn’t only let his eyes flicker to his left for the split of a second this time, but gave his head a full 90° turn and took time to muster Kaiba’s face interrogatively. They drove for another ten seconds in total silence before finally Kaiba’s right lip curled up, and Joey couln’d say about the other side of his face but he sure was smiling, in a Kaiba way. He really thought that was funny. This was what Kaiba entertained himself with in his free time.  
“You are such a… strange… little... meanie!” It sounded way to approving, Joey thought, but only after it had already left this mouth.  
Kaiba nearly grinned. Joey knew it was a grin in Kaiba body language, though his face actually looked no different than any other time. “Let’s see what we can do about your problem then, later”, he said.  
Joey didn’t quite understand what had just been offered to him, though he did understand it had been an offer in some way. “What… are you going to do about that…? Can you… Like can you pay Mr. Yashimoto not to let me fail or something?”  
Kaiba shot him a look of utter disdain, and slowly said: “No… goodness! I’m not lowering myself to corruption for something as utterly minor as your maths grades! I am going to see to you passing the test by writing the right answers down on the paper and thereby getting a good grade, because you know, this is how normal people do school.”  
“What, you mean, you are going to… make me understand maths?”, Joey snorted. “Don’t be silly, this would take you a lifetime!”  
Kaiba glanced at his wrist watch pointedly, then said: “I am fetching Mokuba at his friend’s place at 7pm, so we will have 90 minutes. This will surely suffice.”  
Joey started to feel this time it might not be a joke, Kaiba was possibly really, honestly, considering to teach Joey maths, and this was going to be an utter disaster for both of them, but primarily an utter humiliation for himself. “I don’t… I don’t think that’s a good idea at all, I’m sure you have more important things to do and I, you know, I might just try and memorize some stuff so tomorrow if I don’t understand any word I can at least write down some formulas and it’s gonna suffice for a healthy ‘not quite failed’”, he stuttered.

Kaiba looked at him so intensely and for so long this time, he was about to shout: ‘watch the street for god’s sake!’, but upon opening his mouth Kaiba did get back to the street himself, and asked: “Is this, what you are planning on doing for your whole educational life? You’re not even trying to understand, but trying to sneak your way through, always only a bare millimeter above the line to failure?”  
Joey’s stomach turned a bit at this words. It sounded horrible the way Kaiba phrased it, and really, wasn’t it just something everbody did once in a while? You couln’t be great at everything, right?  
“Don’t be cruel, I’ve really tried, you know? I just don’t really, I don’t know, my brain is not made for this, I, I don’t know, what the teacher says just never makes any sense!”, he defended himself, but Kaiba really did roll his eyes this times.  
“That is because what Mr. Yashimoto says really doesn’t make any sense half of the time”, he stated: “You know, it’s really not that complicated, I will explain -”  
Joey cut him off. “You will explain. Because you’re good at explaining. Like, better than the teacher”, he echoed, sounding half incredulous, half mocking.  
“Yes, because I am good at explaining, I am a fantastic explainer.”  
“Explainer is not even a word, Kaiba!”  
“Shut up and next time blow dry your hair I’m starting to believe you already fetched yourself a nice meningitis”, Kaiba said, and this time, after four seconds of silence, Joey had to snort out loud.  
“Ok, so you’re a good explainer”, Joey repeated.  
“Excellent”, Kaiba added.  
“That’s rich coming from you because you know, I’m sure you consider yourself excellent in basically everything!”  
“That’s not true”, Kaiba replyed drily.  
“Oh, so name one thing you’re not good at.”  
“I don’t play the clarinet so well”, Kaiba said, not even thinking for one second.  
“Ah, so you tried to learn the clarinet once and it didn’t go to well?”, Joey asked, disbelieving.  
“No, I never tried”, Kaiba replied, again fully seriously.  
“So you aren’t so good at playing the clarinet because you never tried.”  
“Exactly.”  
“So what -”  
“What were you expecting, of course I am usually excellent in the things I try.”

There was a silence again. Then the snort again. When Joey looked over this time, Kaiba’s eyes were literally grinning widely, while all his mouth did was a lopsided lazy grimace.  
Joey couln’t help but acknowledge that Kaiba was obviously trying to have a good time with him, which was cute and scary at the same time. When they pulled up to the big villa he was half relieved half disappointed the ride was over.  
“Ok, I’ll give you a try”, he said, fetching his bag from the back seat and stepping out into the horrible flurry of snow.  
“I will behead you if you fail tomorrow after 90 minutes of my time”, Kaiba answered, hurriedly getting up the stairs and into the house, Joey following closely.  
“No you won’t, you need me”, Joey replied, very pleased with himself, and at this, Kaiba turned all the way around to look into his face, and slowly said: “This sounds wrong in so many ways...” and then, with a glance into the room he had gotten the waterglasses that first time: “Let’s have some tea before starting. The weather is really crying out for it.”  
And so they did.

It wasn’t surprising Kaiba was not the ‘throw a teabag into a cup’ kind of guy but more the ‘tea ceremony but in a scientific way’ kind of guy. Joey sat there watching his thin spidery fingers fiddling with the ceramic. He was painfully aware he had probably not had a tea prepared like this except for this one time a Maiko had done it for him.  
He had high hopes now the tea was a feast, in comparison to the tea he made himself being more like a hot bitter grassy water.  
“Where are we going?”, he inquired, as soon as he noticed Kaiba wasn’t heading for the study upstairs this time, but took another way down a dark corridor, striding close to hurrying, carrying the little tray with the tea cups in one hand without spilling a single drop. Joey knew he would have had half the tea on the tray buy now and probably let the whole thing fall to the floor by the time they arrived.  
“To the lounge, as this is where we are going to have your class later.”

My class, Joey thought, but was interrupted by the room opening up in front of him. It was similar to the study in a way, but completely different in another. There were shelves with books here, too, but not as many, and they only reached up to hip level. There was an old-fashioned crystal chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling, which was very high above, and the room had huge windows on two sides, showing off the garden outside, currently only half visible through the darkening and snowy air. A soft rustling noise reached through the windows and there was a fireplace, though Joey was sure Kaiba was not planning on heating that thing for him.  
There was a dark wooden floor and a huge expensive looking carpet, some cosy couches, a coffee table not unlike the one above, but all together, it looked much more cosy, much less busy then the study upstairs. There were no books on the furniture, either.  
Kaiba set the tray on the coffee table and sat on an armchair while Joey was still in the middle of the room, slowly turning around and taking everything in. On one of the walls there was a huge baroque painting depicting some Roman or Greek gods half naked, chatting, a busty blonde lady and a chap with short soft curls in the foreground. He was sure he had seen them before but couldn’t tell which god’s were depicted right now. He might google it later.  
He was asking himself if that was an original and if it was any famous painter, when his gaze turned further to the other wall, clearly showing it had held another painting that had been removed not too to long ago, as the tapestry was stained all around the square space. On the floor, leaning to the wall, but not fitting the size of the gap, was another painting much more modern than the baroque one, depicting two boys in a room with huge windows to a beautiful garden, a small dark haired boy sitting in an armchair four times his size, looking relaxed and playful, the bigger one standing half behind the chair with one arm leaning on the back rest, he was thin with spidery limbs, but dressed like a little gentleman. His posture straight as a pillar, his brown hair trimmed short, his face hard and determined. Joey turned around to look at future Kaiba involuntarily, who just stared back, in a way nearly daring Joey to make a comment about the portrait, but Joey didn’t. He wasn’t thinking about the two boys anymore. He was asking himself if the missing picture from the wall had been showing the boys’ stepfather. And when Kaiba had removed it from the wall. And what Kaiba felt when he was looking at the gap. Did he hate this man? Had he ever talked to anyone about what he had done to him? And what else had he done to him besides this one he already knew about though never was supposed to?  
He really wanted to know, but he felt it wouldn’t be a wise idea to start a questioning today. Not if he might really get a chance to learn something useful for the exam tomorrow. And maybe never, if he was interested in continuing to earn himself 30.000 bugs a week by simply standing around for an hour saying uncomfortable things. He wrote a brain-sticky note to google Gozaburo Kaiba, too.

“Sit”, Kaiba instructed, after a while. He had been very patient, generously cutting Joey some slack to satisfy his curiosity, so he hurried to sit opposite to Kaiba and give him an attentive look to show he was waiting for instructions.  
“Relax. Just have your tee first”, Kaiba said quietly. He himself did look relaxed. One leg lazily over the other, one arm propped on the arm rest, the middlefinger of his other hand caressing the rim of the tea cup on the other arm rest. When Joey stretched to get the cup from the table onto his knee, he was painfully aware the rug under his feet was probably worth half a million yen, and he could not under any circumstances spill his tea on it. So no pressure at all.  
They sat in silence for ten minutes, Kaiba seemed in thought and Joey was content sipping his extraordinarily well brewed tea, watching the sky darken outside until there was only white flakes in a dark mass, when finally Kaiba stood up and walked to a drawer, bent over and reappeared with a stack of white blank paper and a hand full of pens. He placed both on the table, in a strange way getting everything to look very orthogonal and tidy and instagramable without even trying.  
“I will hurry and fetch my textbook”, Joey said, half standing, but Kaiba cut him off with a gesture: “We won’t need your book”, he said calmly, but then added: “But as you are standing now, let’s go upstairs.”  
“Why, aren’t we having the session here?”, Joey asked somewhat confused. Was this room in any way less functional than the study for what the were doing? Kaiba seemed to contemplate the same thought, as a moment later he asked: “Do you prefer this room?”

And Joey slowly nodded, thinking about how there was a soft carpet under their feet stopping Kaiba’s knees from making that disgusting noise when hitting the wooden floor, and the comfy sofas around them, and the big windows laying a silencing, soothing snowy atmosphere over the whole scene.  
To late, he saw Kaiba’s eyes flicker only for a millisecond up to the non existent painting on the wall, and he understood, that this had been his father’s place, while the study upstairs probably made him feel somewhat more secure.  
“We don’t have to, really. Maybe, now I think about it, let’s just go upstairs shall we not?”, he hurriedly added, but Kaiba shot him a dismissive look, not even needing to shake his head to make sure the decision had been made.  
“Uhm ok...”, Joey just said, very quietly, and suddenly found, starting the session here sort of felt like starting all over again, while in the study upstairs, he had already sort of desensitized a bit. He looked at the little clock standing on one of the old drawers indicating it was half past four, which meant they probably had about 50 minutes now, and then slowly directed his gaze back to Kaiba, unwillingly even, who was standing in front of him, on the other side of the coffee table, tall, straight, staring back at him like he was about to go to war.

“Is… anyone else in the house right now? You know, the… maid or something?”, he asked, feeling uncomfortable suddenly at the thought anyone might here him saying obsceneties.  
“No”, Kaiba simply said: “Get going. Say it.”  
Joey bit his lip carefully, then strode over to the door to close it, and then settled back into the sofa, sitting on the edge, his arms stemmed onto his knees.  
“I want to ask you for one thing this time before we start”, he said, hoping he didn’t overexert Kaiba’s patience now, but Kaiba just kept returning his gaze, so Joey went on, hurriedly to get it over with: “You know that thing that you always do, when I ask you if you’re ok, and then you say of course – please don’t do that today.”  
Kaiba looked at him quizzically, then rose one eyebrow, then opened his mouth, and Joey knew, he just knew what was going to come out of it and he said: “I know, like, say whatever you please, I just mean, don’t say it if it isn’t true, you know. Please tell me if you’re not alright, because it will make things much easier really.”  
For a moment it looked like Kaiba was about to argue, but then somehow his stare changed, and he didn’t look quite as much as a soldier in combat anymore, and he nodded slowly and said: “Fine, I will consider.”

Joey threw him a small smile that he wasn’t feeling, but thought was in need anyway, then said: “Ok. Then… Step back from the table will ya.”  
He did, and that instant, Joey said, loudly, clearly, but with no anger or fury. “Kneel!”  
Kaiba gave a court sound, choking and cut off, and then stood, straight, staring at a point behind Joey, clenching and unclenching his hands, his open shirt collar shaking from an inaudible hard, shallow breath in short intervals. Ten seconds. He started to bite his lip. Twenty seconds. His gaze slid to a point close to Joey’s breast, but his eyes looked empty, unseeing, or seeing something completely different in the distance of time or space. Thirty seconds, his hands started to shake, his shoulders jerked, his gaze fell to the ground, then he grimaced, shut his eyes tight: “nonono”, Joey whispered softly, then hurriedly grabbed the first suitable thing in his reach which was his own scarf, quickly untied it from his neck and reached over to Kaiba to shove both ends into his hands just before he could try and clench something else again. They snapped the fluffy woolen textile and gripped down hard, 40 seconds, Joey sneaked up behind Kaiba, there was barely any space between him and the armchair but he squeezed himself in the gap, then touched Kaiba’s upper arm carefully to make sure Kaiba wasn’t going to ellbow him out of suprise he was suddenly behind him, and then lowly said: “You feel him right know, don’t you? Tell me where!” They were so close Kaiba must feel his breath while speaking into his neck.

“He is pushing my right shoulder”, Kaiba said, it was close to a whisper: “I feel his hand in my hair, yanking forward...” it seemed as if his hand was going to reach up to trace the invisible touch, but Joey reached down to cup his hand lighly. Then he rose his own hand to Kaiba’s right shoulder, carefully stroking it with his whole hand: “No that’s me, see”, he said softly. “That’s my hand. I’m not pushing you, I’m helping you. This is what you feel. It’s only me being here with you, having a cup of tea, telling you to kneel, but you won’t do that, because that would be stupid, wouldn’t it? So you don’t, you’re just telling me: ‘No I won’t’, and we can get on with our tea, that easy really.”  
Joey could tell Kaiba was actually focusing on him now, because of the goosebump building on his hairline, either from the warm breath on his neck or from the soft, husky voice triggering some kind of asmr effect. He turned shortly, to see the watch. 70 seconds now.  
He saw Kaiba suddenly jerk his head in a strange way, down and to the right only the slightest bit, and his right shoulder stiffen. So he traced his hand over the shoulder, up to the neck, passing the collar line, trailing his hand up Kaiba’s neck, putting some pressure on the small muscles next to the cervical vertebrae, but extremely careful not to reach to much around the front or directly on the spine, and give him the feeling of being pushed forward, or worse, chocked. Then he let the hand crouch into Kaiba’s hair, combing it up, seeing the scars from only a hand’s length away now, then softly glided it forwards to the direction Kaiba’s head had twitched to, and carefully held against the imaginative pull, rising the other arm to softly untangle the scarf from Kaiba’s left hand, then he other one, and when the scarf fell to the ground he leaned in really closely and whispered in his ear: “I’m telling you to kneel, but you won’t do that, because you are a powerful grown man and there is no-one in the world who could make you do something you don’t want to.”, he felt like a creepy magician right now, huskily hypnotizing Kaiba into another reality, but it seemed to work. “Why don’t you just sit, why not make yourself comfortable. There is no harm to be expected, it’s just me, asking something from you that you don’t want to give, so you won’t, and that’s fine”, he whispered, and Kaiba slowly lifted his head, so Joey slid away to make room, and Kaiba’s hands fumbled for the edge of the armchair, then he softly eased himself into it, while Joey slid noiselessly around the chair to stand behind it. He rose his hands to lay on Kaiba’s shoulders, feathery, weightless, and slowly bent down, inclined his head, and leaned his temple against the side of Kaiba’s head, letting his fingers wander centimeter by centimeter, slowly crossing them over Kaiba’s chest, until they sat in a weird embrace, weirdly intimate, weirdly angular…  
“What do you feel know?”, he asked quietly, perfectly still.  
It took a while for Kaiba to answer. He wasn’t whispering anymore but his voice was very soft, very low. “I don’t know. I feel…. it’s everywhere.”  
“Yeah, that’s me. How does it feel?”  
“It’s warm.”

Joey was extremely glad he didn’t see Kaiba’s face. He had brought both of them in a very strange situation, and he had no idea why Kaiba had not already told him to get his dirty paws off his body. Never ever had he imagined there was a chance in hell he would be this close to Seto freaking Kaiba without his head being chopped off.  
He rose his head a tiny bit to look at the picture leaning on the wall opposite to them, half hidden by the sofa, but showing the two little faces of the boys.  
“Look at yourself. Have you cut your hair so he could not pull it anymore?”, he asked qietly.  
Kaiba again took a while to answer: “I was twelve. I cut it myself, it was all spotted and blotchy. He didn’t take that well… I wasn’t allowed to leave the house until it had grown back.”  
“You were a very brave child.”  
“I was merely doing what I thought was going to give me some ease.”  
“When I tell you to kneel now, I want you to imagine you just cut your hair. It’s way to short to grab it, and you are a tall man, he never knew you were growing up so tall and strong. He could never do you any harm today. You would never let him touch you, would you?” He slowly wound his hands off Kaiba’s chest and straightened his back, looking down at the figure sitting perfectly still.  
“Are you ready?”  
“Yes.”

“Kneel”, Joey said. Nothing happened. Carefully, not to make any sound, he stepped around the chair to see Kaiba’s front, to watch his face. He had his chin down low, his eyes closed. He was sitting straight and stiff, but breathing slowly, no shaking hainds, no twitching shoulders.  
“Kneel!”, Joey repeated, louder with some vigor. Kaiba’s head twitched to the side shortly as if shaking something off, his hands jerked but didn’t grip down on anything, and this was just brilliant, Joey thought, half crouching in front of Kaiba to see his face. He took a deep breath, then yelled: “Get the fuck on the floor right now you -” he did not have to exclaim any more indignities, because Kaiba was literally being ripped off the chair, one hand trying to grip anything to hold him up while the rest of him was half on the floor already, and that meant, half on Joey basically, only that he had reacted instinctively, jumping forward and pushing Kaiba back up into the chair with his own bare body weight. He bit his lip not to say something that would spoil the exercise by accidentally stopping the order he had given.  
“Get down I said!”, he repeated, at the same time shoving his arms around the other man’s body and gripping tight, steadying himself with one knee on the armchair next to Kaiba’s thigh, the other foot on the ground bracing against the impulse pushing him back.

In a very very strange uncomfortable and inappropriate way this was not only a full embrace but Joey was half sitting on Kaiba’s lap by now, and he was feeling the sticky skin against his, Kaiba’s neck to his collarbone, the heavy breathing under the bony ribcage, then Kaiba’s hands gripping down on the next best thing in reach, Joey’s sweater.  
“Release… me”, Kaiba demanded, raspy voice just centimeters from Joey’s ear.  
“No, release yourself”, he answered, gripping tighter: “I got you. I’m not letting go. Shake it off!”  
Kaiba gave that strange noise again, a half choked breath, then moved, the weight strangely shifting under Joey’s grip, and then, getting Joey by surprise, he brought his foot up on the chair, stemmed himself up and slipped through Joey’s arms causing him to nearly fall over, then suddenly he was standing behind the chair, bent over, gripping down hard into the backrest, fingers white, panting like a madman, his eyes perfectly level with Joey kneeling on the other side of the chair, staring into his eyes.  
“Kneel!”, Joey yelled, involuntarily, and Kaiba, unclenching his teeth, eyes wild, screeched back at him in the split of a second: “No!” - “Kneel!”, Joey screamed again, voice furious, and again: “No!”, Kaiba repeated with the determination of a man fighting off a hungry a grizzly.  
“DO IT!”  
“I’d rather die!”  
“Then I’ll make you!”, Joey shouted, following the weird dynamic that had enfolded between them.  
“Then come and try!”, Kaiba shouted back, bending down even further, and then, Joey was about to spit out another insulting order, when he saw something in Kaiba’s eyes, staring into his, but his face close to not human anymore, his nostrils flaring, his eyes sparkling hateful in the dark, his head threateningly inclined, that gave Joey the impression he had about three more seconds before he had Kaiba on his throat like a wolf, and in this very moment he knew, he just knew as sure as he knew his own name, Kaiba had killed his stepfather, and yet he was staring right into the man’s eyes in this moment, and he would probably do it again, right now.

“Stop it!”, he yelled instead, and it was as if Kaiba was snapping out of something, waking up from a hypnotic session, or a trip to a parallel universe. He kept staring for another moment, then slowly blinked a few times, then something in his face changed and Joey had the impression, the eyes locking into his now did see Joey’s face, and not someone elses. He looked very confused. And very tired. A trickle of sweat ran down his cheek. They stared at each other for what felt like ages, their faces at level and mere inches from each other, hands on the backrest seperating them.  
Then, flexing his left hand, Kaiba carefully pronounced: “I think you should go now.”  
“I’m not going fucking anywhere”, Joey replied, staring back determinedly.  
“I don’t think it’s save for us to continue with this anymore”, Kaiba insisted, raising one arm to wip the sweat from his temple.  
“And I think you are afraid, but I’m not, and I won’t let you spoil what you have achieved just because you’re worried you can’t handle this, because I’m sure you fucking can.”  
“I’m not worried for me, I’m worried for you – you insufferable” - Joey cut him off: “I know! But you haven’t laid so much as a wrong finger on me so far, and I trust you never will, so I’m not fucking going, end of the story!”  
Kaiba was still breathing heavily but silently, returning his stare for another few moments, then he sighed, let his gaze fall down and slowly staightened his back, stepping back from the chair. His gaze wanderes to the windows for a moment, then fell off, standing there looking into the off for a moment with his mouth half open and his breath heaving softly.

“We shouldn’t have done this, this is leading down a road I cannot -” Joey cut him off again. “Don’t be silly! That was fantastic! You were fantastic! That was exactly what we were aiming for, you can’t throw this all away now!”  
“I don’t… this was not what I was...”, Kaiba started, but trailed off, leaving another pause for Joey to cut in: “Look, sit. It’s enough for today. You are literally exsanguinate, and I think you might want to wash your face, and I also think you might want to have another tea. Here, can I make you some?”, he had managed to usher Kaiba back into the armchair without touching him by barely gesturing into the air making him go wherever the air around him was pushed to, but then he got back up right away.  
“You are not making me tea in my own house”, he said, awkwardly determined, grabbing his teacup like a strange scepter.  
“Good, you know what? I’m taking these. You go and throw some freshness into your face, and I will cook water, and then we’ll meet in the kitchen and you will make tea. For us. In your house. Is that fine?”, he extended his hand to for Kaiba to hand over the cup, while simultaneously grabbing his own one from the table.  
Kaiba hesitated, then handed his cup over.  
“Give me five minutes”, he said, slowly, tired now.  
“Take your time”, Joey said, turning to leave. The clock said, it was close to five, they had not even spent 25 minutes. But he was rather sure Kaiba wouldn’t let himself go on exercising today, and to be honest, he probably wasn’t really able to, anyways.

 

When Kaiba arrived in the kitchen exactly 5 minutes later, he looked not one shade healthier, but his cheeks had a rosy tone to them, his bangs were damp, and he was wearing a dark long sleeve narrow cut T-shirt hugging his this frame casually. They didn’t talk while he prepared another round of tea for them, Joey was content watching his spidery fingers fiddling with the equipment again, feeling estranged by the realization he sort of seemed to enjoy watching Kaiba doing things with his hands. It was a very elegant and fluent sight, every movement looking perfect and professional and lightweight.  
When he was done, he took the cups and carried them over to the dining table on the huge glass front and sat, Joey followed him, once again taking the place opposite to him, accepting his cup, but then looking outside into the garden only very flimsily lit by little lanterns. There was something glistening further down the garden close to some trees, and Joey mused, this must probably be a little lake. It must be a breathtaking sight in the bright day… Tomorrow it would be beautiful with the fresh snow glittering everywhere…

He shot Kaiba a short look. Then he thought about his small apartment, two rooms in a poor part of the city, no living tree in sight for miles, waking up at two in the morning from the neigbours death threatening each other in their apartment, it must be bliss to live here. It must be a bliss to live this life… But was it? Did Kaiba enjoy it as much as he always thought he did? And if so, what had he paid for it? As far as he knew, Kaiba had been a normal boy living with his normal not rich parents in a normal house before he had lost his home and lived at this orphanage for a while, where he had sort of sneaked his way into this house. Had he known then what was about to come, had he still done it? For his brother? Or for himself? Had he wanted this life so badly he had been willing to take this sacrifice? He looked over, watching Kaiba in the reflection of the window for a moment, who was staring outside into the garden in an unfocused and blank way, obviously being at a completely different place in his mind.  
“Let me fetch some paper and we’ll start with your class,”, Kaiba suddenly said, getting up rather abruptly, but not in a haste.  
“What, here you mean?”, Joey asked, not sure if he was supposed to empty his tea in an instant and get up to follow Kaiba.  
“Yes, here. Stay seated, I’ll be right back.”  
Joey, nodded, following Kaiba out of the kitchen. He did notice Kaiba was not going down the corridor in the direction of the lounge, to fetch the paper he had put ready there. He probably wasn’t going to enter this room any time soon anymore. Knowing Kaiba, he had probably already called someone to level the room to the ground completely.


	6. Lovely day for a cheap Bourbon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey - listen!
> 
> Notice how you don't stumble over every second word anymore, how everything is smoother and brighter and more colourful and generally so much greater and better?  
> It's because I got myself a BETA-READER!  
> Now you lot are enjoying this extra sugary, low-fat, vegan and high-quality text because [Saralley](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Saralley/pseuds/Saralley) has worked her rocky path through this mess and gave it her personal 'organic' stamp, only that it doesn't say organic but: 'Like before but better because I nibbled up all the grammar mistakes you made you lazy grammar sucker!'
> 
> (She didn't say that, she's a lady honestly.)

“How has it been?”  
When Joey turned his head, he saw a midnight blue car stopping next to him on the street speaking in Kaiba’s voice. Or rather, it was Kaiba speaking through the open window.  
“Jump in, I’m going north again, I’ll drop you on the way”, he added, and the door magically opened. Joey hesitated for a second, but it was freezing and snowing again, the cold wind biting on his red and hot cheeks, so he climbed inside the car. “You’ve already driven me home yesterday; you can’t be my personal chauffeur all the time”, he said, grinning a bit sheepishly, but Kaiba only rolled his eyes, pulling into a parking lot backwards to speed off into the other direction. Joey hurried to belt on, as Kaiba seemed to be late for his meeting. That, or the devil was chasing him.

“Was yesterday so horrible you have to kill both of us now?”, he asked pointedly, but Kaiba didn’t even show he got the hint.  
“How’s it been?”, he asked again.  
“Well not to bad I think… Ok actually it was… really good! I mean, I did sort of… I think I knew what I was doing…!”  
“Uh, that’s new for you, isn’t it?”  
“Fuck off, Kaiba.”  
“So do you want to tell me something?”  
“Naahhh...”  
“I do think you want to.”  
“I don’t think I do.”  
“Oh come on, just say I saved your ass and you'd have never thought that one day you'd be able to understand integral calculus and life is so much brighter now.”  
“Yes. Whatever you’re saying.”  
“Next time remind me to never help you out again.”

Joey rolled his eyes and looked outside into the glistening snow crystal filled world.  
“Actually… I think I should really thank you, to be honest”, he finally said very faintly.  
“Oh! And why is that?”, Kaiba probed mercilessly while sliding rather than turning into a small alley without reducing speed in the slightest.  
“Maybe because you really are good at explaining and I would have totally failed today if you hadn’t sacrificed your time yesterday to help me with this stuff”, he sighed theatrically, rolling his eyes very obviously this time.  
“Oh. Great!”, Kaiba said, drifting around another narrow corner at full speed.

“You know, there are children living in our street, and maybe I don’t want to miss the opportunity to receive my very first good maths grade. Maybe I’d even want to frame it and hang it on my wall! And maybe there is even other stuff I would love to experience in life, you know, plant a tree, built a house, make a kid or two – so please, can you please stop pretending this is Grand Theft Auto?”, he was bracing his arms on the hat rack now, which was good, because right at this moment, Kaiba made a full stop, turned to him and said: “Get out, I’m late!” and Joey jumped out of the car as if the seat was burning, throwing the door closed at lightning speed. He jumped backwards just fast enough to have Kaiba not drive off his toes while rushing off.  
He rolled his eyes again, then hurried inside. Well, having a personal chauffeur wasn’t so bad, even with a slight possibility to get killed once in a while.

 

>>i got a b by the way!<< (15. Jan; 04:32 pm)  
     >>Why only a B?<< (15. Jan; 09:32 pm)  
>>fuck off!<< (21. Jan; 09:35 pm)  
>>So when are you back in town?<< (15. Jan; 09:38 pm)  
     >>Friday, but I am planned out all day, so I think I will have to postpone our meeting to Monday evening.<< (15. Jan; 10:14 pm)  
>>alright. monday 7pm your place then?<< (15. Jan; 10:16 pm)  
     >>Yes, Monday, 7:00 pm.<< (16. Jan; 00:02 pm)  
     >>Congratulations, by the way.<< (16. Jan; 00:12 pm)

 

“Hey, how was your trip?”, Joey started chattily while taking off his jacket, bag, shoes, gloves and scarf. Kaiba’s voice answered from the kitchen down the hallway, muffled but understandable: “Busy. Annoying. But productive.” He didn’t sound too amused.  
When Joey strode around the corner he found Kaiba in full business dress fiddling with the tea. He hadn’t even taken off the tie.  
“Why are you so stressed lately? You haven’t even made it to school once last week, nor today...”, he asked, trying to sound attentive without being bold. He handed Kaiba the tea tin he knew Kaiba would reach out for next and Kaiba took it without even looking at him. Still, his movements were basically the same as always, elegant, professional, precise, only faster, lacking the calm steady rhythm he usually operated with, sort of stressing Joey in compassion while watching.  
“I know, it’s frustrating actually. I had a meeting in Beijing on Tuesday and was only coming back at Thursday night, because there was an important product release on Friday, but then someone from the youth welfare office started asking stupid questions turning my whole schedule into a mess, and yesterday Mokuba caught a cold, so we saw the doctor this morning. He’s completely bedridden honestly, no chance in hell he is going to school any day this week.”  
“Sounds stressful indeed...”, Joey exhaled. He didn’t feel this was a good time for an appointment like this, in fact, he felt sort of guilty for even coming here and being yet another disturbance, and his thoughts spiraled at what was about to come: “Listen, I can just leave and weld postpone our date again? I mean, after the tea that is?”, he offered, looking down at Kaiba pouring hot water into the tiny tea kettle, obviously forcing himself to do it slowly and evenly as always instead of letting his inner restlessness spoil the tea.

“Absolutely not”, Kaiba just answered, this was the first time he lifted his head to really look at Joey. He looked tired and restless at the same time. Something seemed to eat away at him big time.  
“What was that youth office thingy about?”, he asked carefully, but knew instantly he had hit the nail right on the head as Kaiba’s face seemed to sink back into the shadows without even moving one bit.  
“They come here sniffing around once in a while, always asking the same stupid questions, always making the same stupid comments, making a big fuss out of everything… Luckily, Mokuba has a natural talent dealing with them, because seriously, only seeing their faces always makes me want to throw them out of the house in an instant.

“Oh...”, Joey offered compassionately: “Um… sorry, that sounds like quite a nuisance… But… everything is alright, right? With the… questions and everything.”  
“Looks like it”, Kaiba said, jerking his shoulders dismissively. “I think they just enjoy nosing around and making everyone miserable, stealing your time and adding some spice to your otherwise so boring life.”  
“So, is it because you’re underage?”, Joey asked, accepting the tea cup yet not sitting down but standing around with the cup in hand, waiting for anything to happen that was probably not happening, because Kaiba was just leaning against the counter casually, taking a careful sip and looking out of the window, nervously tapping the drawer behind him with his heel, producing a rhythmic clicking noise.  
“I think it’s several things… Of course it’s also that I am underage, but It’s probably some sexist thing, too. Guess they just can’t imagine Mokuba’s managing to grow up decently without any female influences; which is rubbish anyway, he has plenty of female influence. Maybe it’s also because they can’t imagine beside school and the company I have enough spare time to make sure he has everything he needs and gets all the attention he deserves and” - he waved his hand hastily in the air as if to paint a picture in the dark with a sparkler, then broke off, snorting.

“So, is Mokuka -”  
“Sleeping on the second floor, he won’t hear us if we use the lounge, don’t worry”, Kaiba answered swiftly, giving him a court glance, before watching the window again.  
“Who is taking care of him while he’s ill?”, Joey asked, drawing Kaiba’s gaze back to him who arched an eyebrow at him in a daring way.  
“Who do you think does? Who takes care of you when you are ill?”, Kaiba gave back, a strange undertone in his voice, mildly bitter or at least sour.  
“Well… My… father does… I think.”  
“There. See”, Kaiba answered. He didn’t seem to see the difference between a forty-five year old watching over a boy and an only slightly larger boy watching over a boy. But Joey heavily doubted that this was the way Kaiba saw himself. A boy. He had probably decided to be a full-value man on the day his parents died, and he had to take care of his brother. He let his gaze wander the kitchen for a moment, the dining table, the modern cabinets, the clean counter tops… Had Kaiba ever cooked in here? Imagining Kaiba making chicken soup for his sick little brother made him want to laugh and flinch at the same time.

“So… Are you staying at home with him until he’s better? Is that...I mean is it ok if you just don’t go to school?”  
Kaiba jerked his shoulders indicating that he really didn’t give a damn about what school thought was appropriate behaviour for him, then shot Joey a stern look that surely meant to stop him from asking further questions into that direction, while taking his cup over to the window and sitting at the table. Joey followed him, careful not to let the big sigh inside of him leak to the outside world. Kaiba was in quite a mood today and putting up with Kaiba’s temper was already quite a task without provoking him any further, which he was very intent on doing.

“I don’t know...”, he started carefully again, pulling back a chair and sitting in the same spot as last week. “It seems you’re dealing with quite a lot right not, maybe you’re not n the condition to… overexert yourself today...?”  
He saw Kaiba flaring his nasal wings in the dim light of the kitchen lamp and braced himself for what was about to come, but nothing come.  
“You’re not getting out of this. I haven’t worked on this matter for ten days and last time I checked you were very determined not to abandon this, so if you don’t have at least a brain tumor or a rare and extremely contagious disease, you are not ditching me tonight.”

“Geez Kaiba!”, Joey groaned. Humorous Kaiba was absolutely not at home today, he thought, looking into his tired, frustrated and dead-serious face.  
“Well!”, he then said, stretching his legs under the table, straightening his back, before energetically clapping his palms together in front of his body like a meditating monk. He exhaled sharply and stood up: “Let’s get this over with.”

 

Kaiba slipped back to his kitchen chair like a lifeless woolen puppet, saggy, boneless and absolutely silent.  
“You fine?”, Joey asked, slumping to the other chair. The way Kaiba didn’t move from his position heavily leaning on his hand, one elbow on the table, with his gaze from under his slightly wet bangs lingering on Joey only for a seconds with the slightest hint of hesitation, was enough to tell the other he was not too fine. He would have probably just said yes without a second thought if he had not promised not to do so last week and was now obviously thinking whether to do so anyway or not.  
“I’ll live”, he finally said courtly.  
“Can I make you a cup of -” Joey started but was cut off by Kaiba opening his mouth to interrupt him, though he was faster: “Yeah I know I will not make you a cup of tea in your own house bla bla rich and powerful speak, you are only made tea for if you command me to, whatever – can I get you a drink, because I’m sure you have a secret booth stash somewhere in here and I’m sure there is something gross, expensive and medically valuable in there you should be having right now.”  
Kaiba rolled his eyes.

“Left cabinet door next to the fridge. Put some ice in it while you’re at it.”  
Sometimes Joey wondered how strange it was how easily Kaiba was giving up resistance lately. He got up, maneuvered to the cabinet in question and opened it to find a couple of wide, short glasses, one half empty bottle of Whiskey and nothing else in it. That was easy, he thought, and poured a generous half inch of liqueur into two glasses each. He stepped to the fridge, scanned it, and, of course h found that it had one of those fancy ice cube dispensers! He put some ice in both glasses, walked back and set them on the table noisily while letting himself fall back into his chair with a heavy sigh, then pushed the glass over to Kaiba.

“I thought it’s a sin to have a good whisky with ice!”, he said dryly.  
“It is”, Kaiba answered, laying his fingers around the glass in a loose grip without drinking, merely stroking the glass, then tilting it to either side, watching the liquid slosh around. “But this isn’t. It’s just a cheap common Bourbon reserved only for special days.”  
“Like bad days?”  
“Yes. Like that.”  
“You did well, though.”  
“I suppose I did.”  
“Huh… It’s still about that other thing, right?”  
Kaiba shot him a look but didn’t answer, he just took a big sip. Joey mirrored him. The drink was not even bad. Not as bad as the fancy stuff from the other night he thought. It tasted smooth and caramel-like, though still burning sharply in his throat. They sat in silence looking out of the window for a while, until both their glasses were empty, but none of them said anything about leaving.

When Joey fixed his eyes on Kaiba again, he was glancing into the distance of the nightly garden. His tie was hanging loosely around his open collar and the jacket had gotten lost in the lounge. His bangs were dry again and his face was relaxed, though not really peaceful. He seemed to be lost in thought, not noticing or not caring that Joey was mustering, on the edge of staring at him rudely, without even trying to hide it. He had a sharp, straight and aristocratically thin nose, dark masculine, vivid eyebrows, cat-like eyes with surprisingly long lashes and thin yet finely curved lips that looked like a muscle on either side of his nose always held them in a slight tension, giving him an alert but somewhat strained look. His chin was as pointy as his nose and his jaw fine and more boyish than masculine without the slightest stubble on his face. His hair that usually seemed to be pressed in perfect form with a ruler had fallen apart now. A part of it was still combed back from running his hands through it uncountable times, but the larger part messily fell over his eyes in soft locks, every other one curling in one or the other direction. He was still leaning on his fist slightly bent over the table in a heavy and yet elegant way, one hand brushing the glass and tipping it with his ring finger lazily. He was manly and unusually classy for a teenager. But he was unusually juvenile and elegant for a man. There was something undeniably beautiful about him. The finely carved, nearly androgenic face, the youthful, thin and elegant body, the proud and independent posture.  
“Hey Kaiba?” Joey started very quietly, only now realizing he had been caressing the rim of his glass in endless rounds for quite a while and stopping it quickly.  
“Yes”, Kaiba answered automatically and his gaze whipped over to him as effortlessly as if the garden had never existed.  
“I really -”  
“Seto?”  
They both looked up at the same time, heads flipping in unison towards the voice.  
Mokuba stood in the door. He looked as if he had woken up only a minute ago, wearing his pajamas, his hair standing up in every direction possible and shining raggedly, nose and cheeks red, eyes tired. He was hugging half a blanket while the rest of it was trailing on the floor behind him.

“Hey, did you wake up?”, Kaiba asked, seemingly not caring that this was an untypically pointless question for him to ask.  
“Oh, hey Joey”, Mokuba yawned without answering the question. He seemed strangely unshaken with the fact that Joey was in his kitchen drinking with his brother in the evening like… a friend. Joey wondered if Kaiba had told him anything about the meetings or if Mokuba just assumed it was a normal thing to invite a classmate over for fun, even for his brother, which Joey was sure was not at all a normal thing for him to do.  
“I’m cold, can I sleep in your bed?”, he asked instead of wasting any more attention on Joey whatsoever. Now that he had said more than three words, it was easily perceived how nasal and hoarse his voice sounded. “If the laptop light doesn’t bother you”, Kaiba just answered getting up and giving Joey a quick look: “I think I will have to toss you out now.” Then he strode over to Mokuba with measured, slow steps, laid one hand on his head with the palm softly touching the boy’s forehead and the fingers brushing his hair, the other hand on the kid’s shoulder. He was tiny for a ten-year-old, barely reaching Kaiba’s elbow.

“I don’t give a -” Mokuba muttered, but Kaiba disrupted him with a clear but not too sharp “Mind your language young man!!”, still gave the boy another short rub and bent down to pick him and the blanket up in his arms. “Let’s bring Joey to the door, shall we?”, he asked, fishing for the end of the blanket on the floor with his foot and scooping if up into his embrace.  
Joey, who had gotten up rather quickly when he had sensed it was his call to go home, now hurried over to them. It was probably the first time Kaiba had ever used his nickname and it reverberated in his ears in a half pleasant, half unpleasant manner, but Kaiba didn’t seem to give it a second thought, he just turned around and strode down the corridor to the door, Joey following closely. Mokuba must have a good 50 pounds by now he thought, still Kaiba didn’t even look like it was a big deal to carry him around. His fragile frame must have more muscle around his spine than it looked like.

When he had thrown on his shoes, coat, scarf, gloves and bag rather hurriedly to give them both some privacy, he slipped through the door held open for him, made a few steps into the cold outside and only then turned around a last time to say goodbye. Mokuba had lain his head on Kaiba’s shoulder and Kaiba had hugged the blanket around the boy, holding him with both arms protectively against the cold blowing wind. Joey smiled and waved a hand over his head. “Bye Kaiba! Sleep well Mokuba”, he said, and Mokuba raised one of his small hands to wave him goodbye, lifting his head the tiniest bit, while Kaiba only looked back at him, removing one hand from the blanket-freeform in his arms to the grab doorknob, but letting it hover in mid-air for two seconds as a silent farewell, then blinked at him once, very distinctly, like a cat, and the lip-tension-muscle on the sides of his nose twitched once, before the door closed.


End file.
